


Bonds Unbroken

by Coruscant_Expat



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: Action & Romance, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Novelization, Slight Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, longfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2019-06-12 06:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 60,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15333570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coruscant_Expat/pseuds/Coruscant_Expat
Summary: Meetra Surik is the Jedi Order's greatest example of punishment: branded an Exile, her only reward for returning from the Mandalorian Wars untainted by the Dark Side, and cut off from the Force itself. Haunted by her actions and forsaken by those she considered family, she embraced her new title and departed to the Outer Rim planets, intending to disappear entirely, and, for a time, she succeeded.But now, nearly a decade later, Meetra finds herself dragged out of her isolation and thrust into the fallout of a conflict she thought long behind her. A new war is coming, and though she is no longer a Jedi, Meetra has a choice to make: save the Republic and the ideals of those who cast her out, or take her vengeance and aid in its destruction.A retelling of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords, with some canon divergence to reflect the choice-based narrative. Some dialogue has been taken directly from the game, but effort is/will be made to keep this to a minimum. All characters, with a couple exceptions, belong to EA/Bioware/Obsidian/LucasArts (just covering bases here in case legality is kind of murky); this is merely the relation of events and characters through my personal filter.





	1. Then

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Bonds Unbroken](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16795600) by [Phanera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phanera/pseuds/Phanera)



Jazala Paldos' initial impression of Belsavis was... less than positive.

She quickened her pace to keep her fellow petty officers in sight. The thick snow slowed their steps, but visibility was low enough that losing track of her squad was a reality. Jazala trudged forward, squinting through the faceplate of her helmet. Lieutenant Sallon had ensured the squad their target, one of the rare temperate zones dotting the ice planet, was less than fifty klicks from the shuttle's landing zone, but Jazala hadn't seen any signs of the weather changing. If anything, it had worsened, the snowfall slowly becoming a snowstorm. If they didn't reach the temperate zone soon, there was a chance they could be forced to turn back to the shuttle and wait for conditions to improve, or worse, find themselves trapped in a blizzard with little cover besides their winter gear.

The winter camouflage-clad figure to her right staggered, tripping over something beneath the snow or the shin-high drifts themselves, and fell to one knee with a grunt. Jazala swung out of formation long enough to put a hand under the officer's arm and help him to his feet, returning to her position as smoothly as the snow allowed. Her comrade hurried to catch up and turned his dark-tinted faceplate toward her, wrapped head-tails swinging as he nodded. His thickly accented Basic was tinny through the microphone in his helmet. "Thanks, Jaz."

She gave him a playful two-fingered salute with the hand not holding a blaster rifle. "Remind me never to take you dancing, Deek. Two left feet so bad you can't even walk straight." Though she was unable to see through his faceplate, Jezala could imagine the Twi'lek's golden face and lopsided smile, an expression he wore often. Dekar Sana was her first and closest friend since being assigned aboard the  _Harbinger_ a year ago. Perpetually cheerful, aggressively friendly, and seemingly laconic to a fault off duty, Dekar was also one of the squad's most proficient marksmen and the most talented hand-to-hand combatant among them, likely due to a rough childhood on Ryloth. A kind heart housed in a deadly machine.

Dekar returned the salute, flicking a lekku in her direction to further mock her. "You know you'd never be able to handle these moves." He kicked out at the nearest snowdrift. "It's all this white druk. We don't have it on Ryloth." Jazala had grown up on Coruscant where it  _did_ snow and she still had to agree with him. The snow on Belsavis made winter on her home planet look like a mildly chilly afternoon. Dekar continued to grouse at the snow, as if he could clear his path forward with the hot air accompanying his complaints. "This VIP had better be worth it. We could have been in the cantina by now, a pint of juma juice in each hand." He mimed holding a glass in his free hand and raised his arm above his head with a flourish.

Jazala chuckled, but, again, it was hard to disagree with her friend. The  _Harbinger_ had been bound for Telos and its orbiting Citadel Station, where the crew had expected to spend a week on leave while the ship was refueled and repaired, but Captain Donshe had announced the diversion to Belsavis two solar days ago, citing orders from on high. There was scuttlebutt among the enlisted crew that the order came from an admiral, but the commissioned officers had been tight-lipped about the details. Sallon had only mentioned the squad was here to pick up an "informant" for the Republic on the shuttle ride down. 

As if her thoughts were a summons, Sallon's voice cut in over the communicator, his gruff Alderaanian-accented Basic commanding the squad's attention. "Target's in sight. Tighten up formation and pick up the pace, but no aggressive moves. These are our people here." Dekar turned his head toward Jazala and she could almost see the raised eyebrow through the tinted faceplate. Sallon had mentioned that there was a Republic scientific outpost here, but nothing more than that. She shrugged and squinted ahead, barely making out Sallon's back at the head of the formation. Past him, trees loomed in the distance; dark indistinct shapes against the increasingly heavy snowfall - the first sign of life Jazala had seen since the shuttle landed. She even thought it felt a little warmer now - marginally, but still noticeable. She gestured at Dekar and the two quickened their pace to match the other officers.

Twenty minutes of sluggish sprinting later, the squad arrived at the temperate zone and Jazala realized how any part of Belsavis' frozen surface could be hospitable. Several geothermal vents marred the ground, spewing enough hot air to raise the temperature substantially. Snow continued to fall, but melted on contact with the short scrub covering the ground. Several temporary plast-cast structures were scattered around a small clearing formed by the trees and two vents; a handful of people in light winter gear milled around between the buildings, freezing as they noticed the squad approaching. One of the figures, a human, caught a shorter duros and leaned toward her, then the duros darted into the largest structure. Sallon gestured for the squad to halt and slung his blaster rifle across his shoulders, reaching up to release the clamps of his helmet and remove it. The other officers followed suit. Jazala attached her helmet to her belt and fished a tie out of one of her vest pockets, finger-combing her dark curls into a bun and securing it in place. Next to her, Dekar pulled his helmet free, but left his lekku covered, and turned a circle, taking in their surroundings. His movements were unhurried, but his green eyes analyzed everything. "Well, I guess I can see why someone would want to set up out here." He crouched next to one of the vents and put a hand out toward it, immediately snatching it back with a hiss.

Jazala laughed, reaching out to inspect his hand. "What did you expect, dummy?" Dekar had the sense to look sheepish, giving one of his lekku a self-conscious scratch. His glove was still warm to the touch, but appeared to be undamaged. Jazala released him and wagged a finger. "No touching." He rolled his eyes and bumped her with his shoulder, an action she copied with just a hint more force. Before Dekar could retaliate, the duros reappeared from the large structure, another human man following her. His eyes widened as he took in the armed soldiers, but he took Sallon's hand with little hesitation when the former held it out. 

Sallon, ever the diplomat, kickstarted the exchange. "I apologize for the intrusion, Dr...?"

"Sotaris, Kyne Sotaris." Jazala's ears pricked at the familiar Coruscant accent. He glanced over the rest of the squad again before returning focus to Sallon. "I'm sorry, but we weren't expecting the Republic to send troops for..." He trailed off into a tense silence. Jazala felt for him; having a group of Republic soldiers descend unannounced probably wasn't the way Sotaris had expected his day to go.

Sallon resumed control over the conversation. "We're not here to disrupt your work, Dr. Sotaris. Republic Command is seeking an individual associated with an ongoing investigation, and there have been reports that she has taken shelter here at your project." Sotaris blinked owlishly at him, causing Jazala to chuckle inwardly. Sallon never was good with civilians. The lieutenant cleared his throat, seeming to realize the awkward approach, and started again. "Sorry. I'm Lieutenant Carrus Sallon, of the  _Harbinger_. We've been sent to retrieve a witness for questioning, a woman, and we believe she may be here."

Realization dawned on Sotaris' face, though he quickly suppressed it, and he exchanged a glance with the duros. She muttered something under her breath, too quick for Jazala to catch, and Sotaris turned back to the lieutenant. "Is she... in any kind of trouble?" Jazala tensed, sensing rather than seeing Dekar do the same at her side. An inter-Republic fight would do nothing for either side, but if the scuttlebutt was accurate, there was no backing out of this until the squad had retrieved their target.

None of this was lost on Sallon, and, for once, he went for the more tactful route. "Not to my knowledge. However, the Republic believes she has invaluable, and time-sensitive, information." When Sotaris continued to hesitate, the lieutenant changed tack. "Dr. Sotaris... Kyne. I can't tell you why the Republic wants to question her, but I can promise that she won't be harmed."

The duros chattered at Sotaris, but he cut her off gently by putting a hand on her shoulder. He eyed Sallon for a long moment, then leaned down to the duros and murmured something, squeezing her shoulder gently. The duros protested, but Sotaris shook his head and patted her once before releasing her. "Retrieve our guest, please." She hesitated, but ducked back into the plast-cast building. He glanced back at Sotaris, arms crossed and mouth a tense line. "She showed up a week ago - apparently, she rode in on the last supply ship - and offered to help out with the project. She's a drifter, Lieutenant Sallon. I don't think she'll have the information you're looking for."

"That'll be for Command to decide," Sallon replied, his stiff formality returning. Sotaris' mouth thinned even further at the lieutenant's tone. Jazala fidgeted with a loose coil of hair and glanced sideways at Dekar. The twi'lek's eyes were hard and his stance was fluid, ready to move. She flashed a quick hand signal at him and he nodded, forcing himself to relax a little. The duros reemerged, looking as irritated as her boss, with a slender woman following her. Chin-length brown hair, bangs parted to the right; blue-gray eyes; fair-skinned; indeterminate age anywhere from mid-twenties to late thirties: in appearance, the woman was conventionally pretty, but no more so than many others in the Republic. Though she dressed in the same light outerwear the research crew wore, Jazala immediately noticed the difference between them and their guest. The way she carried herself, the way she moved, was too fluid, too controlled; the woman had been trained to fight, though she was somewhat out of practice. A bit too much weight behind her steps, a slight stiffness in her shoulders. Regardless, Jazala recognized the woman's walk from her childhood.

As Sallon moved forward to greet the woman, Jazala leaned toward Dekar. "I think she's a Jedi."

Dekar gave her a sideways glance. "There aren't any more Jedi, Jaz. Besides, she doesn't have a lightsaber. Have you ever seen a Jedi without a lightsaber?"

Jazala glanced at the woman's waist reflexively. Dekar was right; the few times her father had taken her on trips past the temple on Coruscant, Jazala had never seen a Jedi without their signature weapon. However, she was sure she was right, too; every Jedi she'd ever seen moved like woman before them. Sallon extended a hand to her as perfunctorily as he had to Sotaris. "Lieutenant Carrus Sallon, ma'am, of the  _Harbinger_."

The woman eyed Sallon's hand for a moment, one side of her mouth curving up in a small smile, before shaking it once. "A pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant." Jazala frowned, unable to peg her accent. Different from hers or Sotaris', so not Coruscant, but somewhere similar. "I hear you're looking for me."

"Ah, yes, ma'am. Your presence has been... requested at Republic Command." The woman raised an eyebrow, small smile still in place, and Sallon, flustered, continued. "You may have information crucial to an on-going investigation."

"May I ask which one?"

"That's, uh, that's classified, ma'am."

"Oh, so they haven't told you." Sallon stared at her, mouth slightly agape. "Well, do I have a choice in this, or is less a request and more an order?"

Sallon cleared his throat, and Jazala struggled to hide her amusement. Dekar elbowed her surreptitiously, but she could see the effort he was making to suppress his own mirth. "Well, uh, ma'am, my - our orders are to resume course to Telos... with you on board, so... I suppose it is less of a request."

The woman chuckled once and Jazala was struck by how mirthless it sounded. "They don't call, they don't write, but I'm expected to drop everything at their whim. I see the Republic hasn't changed." Sallon, apparently having regained his composure, kept his expression carefully blank, but Jazala could see the unease on Dekar and the rest of their squad's faces, an expression she was sure was mirrored on her own. The woman glanced around at them, her lop-sided smile widening. Evidently, she found their concern amusing. "Very well. I suppose I'm still a citizen of the Republic at least." She turned to Sotaris. "Well, I suppose this is where I leave you, Kyne. Thank you for your hospitality, and I hope to see you again."

Sotaris gave her a sad smile. "We were happy to have you with us. I'm sure the Republic will treat you well -  " He paused and shot a sharp glare at Sotaris "- and perhaps they will be so kind as to return you when this is over." The two shook hands, and the woman turned back to Sallon. "Well, Lieutenant, I suppose I'm all yours. Lead the way and I'll follow you back to civilized space."

"Great. Command diverted us from leave to pick up a crazy drifter," Dekar murmured, earning himself one of Jazala's elbows in his ribs. However, her heart wasn't entirely in it; there was something... "off" about the woman, whether she was a Jedi or not. Dekar scratched one of his lekku again. "All I'm saying is that my bunk is staying locked until we drop her off on Telos."

"Paldos!" Jazala's head snapped up at Sallon's bark. "You'll be our guest's escort while she's with us. Keep her close on the way back to the shuttle and show her to her quarters on the ship." He raised his arm, encompassing the entire squad with a gesture. "Let's move out!" The squad began replacing helmets and returning to formation, and Dekar gave Jazala a pitying look before sliding his own helmet over his headtails and joining the rest. Jazala watched him go, cursing his luck, and pulled the tie free of her curls, returning it to its pocket and detaching her helmet from her belt.

"Are you on his bad side?" Jazla started and turned quickly to find the strange woman standing in front of her. She took a step back, wry smile twisting up one side of her mouth again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Just wondering if the lieutenant has it out for you, or if you just have the worst luck." Now that the woman standing in front of her, Jazala was sure her earlier assumption had been correct. The fair face was virtually unlined, but there was depth behind the blue eyes; she had only ever seen such a combination of agelessness and wisdom on the Jedi outside the temple. 

Jazala straightened, refusing to be intimidated by a maybe-Jedi. "Or he believes I'm qualified for the job."

The woman laughed, a real one this time. "That's a good answer." She pulled a pair of tinted goggles out of the pocket of her jacket and slipped them over her head, hesitating before she pulled them over her eyes. "By the way, I didn't catch your name, unless you prefer your last one being barked at you by two people rather than one."

Jazala hesitated, unsure why she did so. Then she slid her helmet over her head and held her hand out. "Petty Officer Jazala Paldos, at your service."

The woman grinned, pulled her goggles down, and shook Jazala's hand enthusiastically. "Meetra Surik. It's nice to meet you, Jazala."


	2. Now

_All around her, the jungles of Dxun burned._

_The screams of the dying rang out from every direction, but Meetra couldn't see anyone through the thick smoke. She clutched her lightsaber, the outline of the hilt imprinting itself into her palm and fingers, and lifted it, struggling to see through the blackness by the cyan light from both blades. An explosion sounded, terrifyingly near, but no debris, no flames; nothing broke through the roiling smoke. A woman screamed directly behind her, but when Meetra whirled, there was nothing but black. Barked Mando'a clashed with panicked Basic in the distance, the words drowned out by the sounds of war. Meetra drew her lightsaber closer to her, squeezing the hilt with both hands now. She tried to call out, to raise her regiment or anyone else nearby, but her voice died in her throat._

_There was another explosion, at once massive and distant, and the bottom fell out of the world._

_The smoke vanished, revealing a dead planet, the surface scorched and decimated. Ash choked the air now, thick and suffocating, and an artificial storm raged in the outer atmosphere. There was a sound, countless beings shrieking in a horrible concert of agony, but just as quickly as it came, it cut off, leaving a deafening silence. The impact of the explosion drove Meetra to her knees and sent her lightsaber clattering away. Above her, hundreds of ships, Republic and Mandalorian alike, shuddered violently, pulled down toward the planet. Several shattered, gravity tearing at them from a million different directions. Meetra stared up at the carnage, unable to move; her limbs refused to obey her command. A flutter of motion caught her attention and she managed to turn her head far enough to see two figures standing directly beneath the falling ships. The taller one, a man with a shaved and tattooed head, continued staring at the massacre in the sky, but the other figure, whose rippling robes had drawn Meetra's eye, turned toward her, revealing a stylized mask. The figure didn't speak, but Meetra was chilled to her core. Though she couldn't see the eyes behind the mask, she somehow knew they were locked with hers. Unable to bear the tension coupled with the death and destruction around her, Meetra tried to scream, but no sound came out. The figure continued to stare as the world continued to end, and there was nothing she could do about it. She screamed again, soundlessly, every part of her straining to escape the hell she was trapped in._

_Then, above the howling of the storm and the shrieking of the crumpling ships, came a single voice, a lifeline that Meetra seized and clung to:_ "Awaken."

Meetra catapulted back to consciousness, colliding with a clear wall and nearly choking on a mouthful of liquid. Panicking, she tried to reel backward, but only succeeded in floating away from the barrier. Realizing she was able to breath despite the water in her mouth, she took several deep breaths, reaching for the old exercises to get her bearings. Gradually, her vision focused, revealing the reason for the clear barrier as well as why she wasn't drowning: a kolto tank. The aerated liquid flowing in and out of her lungs was an uncomfortable feeling, but not an unfamiliar one; she'd spent her fair share of time in tanks exactly like this one during the war.

Meetra squinted through the glass, but couldn't make anything out through the kolto and her own cloudy vision. She tried to bang on the glass, but only succeeded in a few weak taps. Her muscles felt slow and heavy, weighted down further by the resistance of the liquid. Her head felt fuzzy, like an invisible film of cotton was wrapped around it.

A quiet suction sound started up from somewhere beneath her, but now that the adrenaline from her dream was beginning to wear off, Meetra found it hard to be concerned about the noise. It wasn't until she noticed she was sinking that she realized it was the tank's drains, pulling the kolto out in preparation for her release. Her feet touched the bottom of the tank, but her legs refused to support her weight and buckled, sending her to her knees. She leaned against the tank wall and watched the liquid level drop, feeling more exhausted than she had in ten years.

As the kolto drained past her head, her body took over and Meetra convulsed as her lungs and stomach struggled to expel the excess liquid. When the spasms dwindled to a few hacking coughs, she pushed herself away from the wall of the tank and tried to stand. Her knees gave way immediately and she crashed to the floor, barely catching herself in time to avoid slamming face first into the tank's metal bottom. A wheeze escaped her as she struggled to push herself to her hands and knees, weaving drunkenly as she crawled away from the tank. Her vision faded in and out, tinting the floor in front of her white, then gray, then black before repeating the cycle. She had no idea how far she'd gotten before she collapsed again, sinking down fully to meet the cold tiles.

When Meetra returned to consciousness a second time, more of her faculties seemed to return with her. Her head was no longer wrapped in wool and while she still felt weak, she was able to push herself up into a sitting position with little more than the usual effort. She plucked at her form-fitting undergarment and found it dry; the tiles beneath her were dry as well. Out for some time, then. She struggled to her feet, legs shaking but supporting her weight, and took in her surroundings. Sterile white tile and chrome, the soft hum of myriad electronics, and the inexplicable lack of odor: a medical facility, or at least a wing. She ran a hand through her hair, absently patting it back into its usual style while she searched her memory. She recalled Belsavis, the arrival of Sallon's unit, and the  _Harbinger_ ; her last clear memories were of her quarters aboard the ship, but after that... Meetra bit her lip. It wasn't like her memory was blank; she could recall blurry images, but they were too warped to interpret. She sighed, shook her head, glanced over her shoulder, and nearly tripped over her own feet as she stumbled backward.

There were four other kolto tanks in the room, two on each side of hers, and each held an occupant. No, a body. Four human men floated in the kolto, all dressed in blue and gold uniforms and all extremely dead. A cold weight settled in Meetra's stomach and she backed out of the room, turning away as the door slid shut after her. She leaned against the wall opposite and took a few deep breaths to settle herself. "Hello?" Her voice, raspy and cracked, bounced back at her weakly from walls of the long hallway. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Hello? Can anyone hear me?" No answer. She started down the hall, one hand braced against the wall for support, until she spotted a terminal through the window of a side room. She ducked in and leaned against the console, bringing up the main commands with a few keystrokes. The local cameras revealed nothing but another view of the horrifying tableau in the kolto tanks and two corpses housed in the morgue. A scan of the last patient treatment logs revealed that a fatal amount of sedatives had been injected into the kolto tanks, killing the other four patients, but putting Meetra into a catatonic state. She frowned, the chill in her stomach growing heavier. Whoever administered the medication had to have known her past, something that didn't sit too well after running away from it for the last decade.

Meetra backed out to the command screen again and opened up a file containing several vidlogs, the earliest from three days prior. She pulled it up and a hologram of a human woman's torso materialized above the terminal's screen. Even with the holo's lack of color, Meetra recognized the woman's uniform as the same as the ones on the dead men in the kolto tanks. The recording began to speak, starting mid-sentence. " _\- still examining the survivors of the damaged freighter - Looks like it goes by the name of the_ Ebon Hawk _._ _Only one survivor, placed in the kolto tank for recovery. The carbon scoring on the vessel suggests it was in a battle, but no indication of who fired on it... couldn't get much from the navicomputer. I'm surprised the ship was able to make it inside the Peragus asteroid field without the asteroid drift charts._ " Meetra latched on to the name; she didn't recognize it, but at least she had some useful information now. " _Aside from the lone survivor, we recovered an old woman, no life signs. There was also a protocol droid and an utility droid on board - both sent down to maintenance while security sorts through the other items on the ship. It looks like the utility droid - a T3 unit - was able to get the ship working enough to get to the colony. We're prepared to -_ " The holo dissolved into static, vanishing from above the monitor.

" _Ebon Hawk_. Not the  _Harbinger_ ," Meetra murmured to herself. The name wasn't familiar and she had no memory of switching ships. If she hadn't come here on the  _Harbinger_ , then what had happened to it? She watched the remaining two logs, from a day previous and the day before that respectively, but didn't learn anything about the Republic vessel. However, other questions were answered. She was in the medical bay of a mining facility, one that had been experiencing a rather high accident rate over the last couple of days, and the miners had at least guessed her former Jedi status. The last holo had revealed that an explosion had sent the entire facility into lockdown, explaining the absence of any employees. She unlocked the morgue from the terminal and made her way slowly across the hall into the chilled room. Immediately to her left was the body of an elderly woman, undoubtedly the one mentioned in the earliest log. Her face was well-lined, indicating the woman had been of advanced age, but there was an elegance to it, even in death. This, coupled with the drab brown robes the old woman was dressed in, unsettled Meetra. The corpse reminded her far too much of the older masters. She turned away toward a second body farther in the morgue, this one a deceased miner. Meetra gingerly rifled through the pockets of his uniform, hoping to find something useful. "Sorry, friend." She fished a hand-held plasma torch from the miner's belt and weighed it in her hand, flipping it once and catching it deftly. Not good for a weapon, but useful for getting through locked doors.

There was a soft rustling of cloth and Meetra glanced up to see the old woman rising from her slab. She froze, plasma torch gripped tightly in one hand, and the old woman's mouth curved up into a smirk. She had drawn the hood of her robes down, but Meetra could just see her opaque and milky eyes beneath the edge. When the woman spoke, her voice was soft and slightly raspy, colored through with a Coruscant accent - and surprisingly familiar. "Find what you were looking for amongst the dead?"

"Your voice - I heard it in the kolto tank," Meetra blurted, and the old woman's smirk deepened. "I thought you were dead."

"Nothing quite so final, though closer than I'd like." The calm formality in her voice was both comforting and unnerving. "I had hoped someone would hear. I slept too long here and could not wake up." She tilted her head, sightless eyes managing to lock with Meetra's. "Perhaps it was that I unconsciously called out, and your mind was a willing one... Or, perhaps you are trained for such things?" Her tone was not one of question.

Meetra tensed at the veiled insinuation. She ignored the query in favor of her own, careful to keep her voice free of hostility. "So you can touch minds... and feign death. Useful abilities." The old woman raised an eyebrow, but the sideways smile remained. "Who are you?"

The woman chuckled, as if the question were a mildly entertaining anecdote. "My name is Kreia, and I am your rescuer - as you are mine. Do you recall what happened?"

"No." There was nothing to be gained from lying to Kreia, especially if she could provide Meetra with answers. "The last thing I remember is being aboard the  _Harbinger_ , a Republic ship bound for Telos. You said you rescued me. What happened to the  _Harbinger_?"

"Your ship was attacked." Though still soft-spoken, Kreia delivered the news with all the gentleness of a club. "You were the only survivor." The cold weight dissolved in Meetra's stomach, sending a horrified numbness flooding through her. The image of a dark curly-haired woman and a golden-skinned twi'lek flashed in front of her eyes, nearly distracting her from the old woman's follow-up. "A result of your Jedi training, no doubt."

Meetra's eyes narrowed, suspicion warring with her grief. She pushed the latter down, concentrating on what was more helpful in the moment. "You're mistaken. I'm not a Jedi."

"I never said that you _are_." Kreia waved a hand in a gesture that fully encompassed the younger woman. "However, your walk, your stance tells me that, whatever you consider yourself now, you _were_  a Jedi. Your walk is heavy, like you are carrying something that weighs you down."

"You see well for a blind woman."

"If you see only with your eyes, you will miss much." Meetra resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Kreia was starting to sound like her former masters as well as resemble them. "Enough of this - keep your past and let us focus on the now. I was removed from the world while I slept, so I cannot help you with events leading to our arrival, but the  _Ebon Hawk_ , the ship we arrived on, must still be in this place. We should recover it and leave."

Kreia's voice remained level, but Meetra sensed a new urgency behind the old woman's words. "Why the hurry? This facility is in lockdown. I'm not even sure there's anyone here besides us."

The smirk finally vanished from Kreia's face, replaced with faint annoyance. "Our attackers found us once, and I fear they will not give up so easily. They will find us easy prey without transport, information, and weapons."

"Are you... nervous? Is something wrong?"

"You said it yourself; you are not sure if we are the only ones here." Kreia turned toward the open door as if peering down the hallway. "Even as I slept, I felt much unrest here - I saw strange visions, minds clouded with fear - now, everything feels terribly silent." She glanced back over her shoulder, blind eyes effortlessly finding Meetra's. "If you wish to find out as much as you can about this place, I would do it quickly. I fear we will need to depart as suddenly as we arrived."

The thought rattled Meetra and she remembered the miners floating in their kolto tanks. "There were other patients in the medical bay. They were killed by a lethal dose of sedatives. Do you know anything about that?"

"I don't. Why did they spare you?"

"They... didn't. I received the same dose."

Kreia was silent for a moment as she digested the information. "A Jedi trance could protect one from such poisons -" She held up a hand as Meetra opened her mouth, "Your current status does not change the origin of your abilities; you learned them as a Jedi, therefore they are the abilities of a Jedi. More to the point, there is a chance the sedatives may have been intended to keep you unconscious for some time." She paused, brows furrowing. "It would prove lethal to those not trained in such techniques, however... most curious." She turned abruptly and moved toward the open door. "Come. The sooner we are off, the more distance we can put between us and our pursuers."

"Wait - wait a second." Meetra reached out to grab Kreia's sleeve, but thought better of it and drew her hand back as the old woman turned back toward her. "There's got to be someone left alive around here; if not _here_ in the medical bay, then somewhere else in the facility. If there is, we have to find them."

"Why?"

Meetra blinked owlishly at her. "I... 'Why?'"

"Yes. Why should you risk your life, let alone mine, to rescue some useless miners?" Kreia asked, speaking the last word like it left a bad taste in her mouth. "One of them might even be the culprit who poisoned you."

"That's... a possibility," Meetra admitted, and it was one that wasn't lost on her, "but I won't leave anyone behind. The logs I saw classified the  _Ebon Hawk_ as a freighter. That gives us plenty of room for other survivors." Her explanation was met with silence, but she had the faint sense that Kreia disapproved. She shrugged, unwilling to abandon the miners to their fate without a rescue attempt. "I just can't let them die."

The old woman's smug half-smile was back. "A Jedi's life is self-sacrifice."

Meetra's lips pressed into a thin, irritated line. "It's the right thing to do." She brushed past Kreia and stalked out into the hallway. "You can stay here if you're so worried about your safety. I'll return to make sure you're alright, with any survivors I find."

"Then I leave you to the exploration of this place. I will remain here and attempt to center myself." Kreia crossed to the slab she had previously occupied and settled herself down on it. She looked back to Meetra and arched an eyebrow. "You may wish to extend your search to some clothes... if only for proper impressions."

Glancing down at herself, Meetra had to agree with her. The medical undergarment covered enough to avoid social impropriety, but it was thin, so as to allow kolto through the fibers, and there was a general lack of pants. "I'll keep an eye out. Stay safe, Kreia." The morgue door slid shut behind her as she moved further down the hall, heading opposite from the med bay.

In the morgue, Kreia folded her legs beneath her, the movement graceful despite her age, and focused herself, reaching out with her thoughts to follow Meetra's progress, ready to alert the younger woman should a threat present itself. "Heed your own advice, Exile."


	3. The Smuggler...

Meetra didn't get far before encountering her second set of corpses.

Using the "borrowed" plasma torch, she cut through a malfunctioning door at the end of the hall and nearly stumbled over the bodies of two miners just on the other side. Both were humans, a man and a woman, and they were covered in burns, though neither appeared to have a blaster on them. The sickeningly familiar stench of seared flesh hung faintly in the air, bringing with it specters of her past, but there was no sour-sweet undertone of decay, not yet. Dead no more than a day, maybe less. Ignoring the way the smell of burned skin turned her stomach, Meetra knelt between them, carefully passing her hands over their faces to close their eyes, and unhooked a vibrocutter from the man's belt. The short blade was sharp, with hardly a nick or scratch; new, or well-taken care of. She stood and hefted the mining tool, rolling her wrist to test the weight. It felt unbalanced, as if the other half were missing, but it would do as a makeshift weapon, especially if whatever, or whoever, killed the miners was still on the station.

She crossed the room to the opposite door, cycled it open, and froze. Two large droids swiveled to face her, spidery legs clicking against the floor. Both were equipped with two large laser armaments each and they leveled all four at her without hesitation. The hum of the charging bolts broke her trance and muscle memory took over.

Meetra threw herself forward, low to the ground, as the droids fired. The shots passed above and to the side of her, one coming so close she felt the heat of it against her skin. The droids reoriented to fire again, but she had already reached the nearer of the two and she drove the vibrocutter into its center, twisting her body to the side and using her momentum to pull the now-lifeless hunk of metal between her and the other droid. Its bolts bounced off its former companion, fizzling out against the wall. Meetra gathered her feet beneath her and launched her shoulder into the broken droid, pulling the vibrocutter free as the robotic corpse shot forward and collided with the still functioning one, knocking its spindly limbs from beneath it. Before it could right itself, she vaulted over her first victim and slammed the vibrocutter to the hilt in the second. It shuddered once, clinging to functionality longer than the first, and went still. Meetra released the mining blade and stumbled back, bracing herself against the wall while she caught her breath.

Even though it had been over in minutes, the fight had lasted too long. Ten years ago, the droids would have been in pieces before they’d fired a single shot. She was definitely out of practice. She inhaled deeply and pushed herself away from the wall, nose crinkling when the motion caused the acrid tang of burnt hair to swirl around her. She bent her head, bringing her hair forward, and saw the singed ends along the right side, exactly where the uncomfortably close blaster bolt had passed. Definitely rusty. Possibly the result of years of reliance on a lightsaber as well.

Meetra straightened, brushing her hair back into place, and pulled the vibrocutter from the droid. At least some of the miners’ deaths were no longer a mystery, though why their own droids would attack them remained as such. She briefly contemplated going back for Kreia, but decided against it. The old woman was likely safer in the morgue, and there was no guarantee she’d be any help in a fight. No, better to push on and hope to find other survivors.

The following corridor was blissfully free of both bodies and hostile droids, but Meetra continued to move slowly and carefully through the hallway. Near the end was a large door, labeled as an “emergency hatch.” As Meetra approached it, she sensed a feather-light touch against her consciousness and Kreia’s quiet voice echoed in her thoughts.  _“This is the exit, but it is sealed... strange. In my visions, it was open.”_

”The exit to where?” Meetra asked aloud, but Kreia didn’t respond. “Kreia?” No answer again. Meetra clenched her jaw. There was a time when she would have pestered the old woman in kind, passive-aggressively reaching back through - No. She shied away from the thought. The old wound still stung, even if she had accepted it as part of her punishment. If Kreia didn’t want to be helpful, she’d just have to accept it. She tested the door, but it refused to budge; either electronically locked or barred from the other side, and too thick to cut through with the plasma torch either way.

Turning away from the hatch, Meetra carefully engaged the door into the next room, vibrocutter at the ready. Though thankfully empty of droids, there were more dead miners: a dark-haired man roughly half her age, barely more than a boy, and another with a shock of gray hair. The second man lay between a desk with a terminal and a set of set of lockers, his face turned away from Meetra, but the burns on the back of his uniform signaled his demise. She stepped gingerly around the body and sat at the desk, booting up the machine to find a collection of security feeds and accident report recordings. She played through each of the files, anxiety settling deeper into her stomach with each one. As she had feared, the miners had guessed her past and her presence had agitated several of them; of particular note, someone named Coorta, a frequent offender according to the security chief and an advocate for turning Meetra over to something called the “Exchange.” Apparently, the droids had gone haywire around the same time. Meetra glanced down at the body next to the desk and back to the stern face captured in the holo. If someone so self-assured had been taken by surprise, she didn’t know how much of a chance the other miners had.

Backing out of the logs, Meetra switched over to the live feeds. The station’s communications blister was empty of anyone living, but a group of droids prowled the perimeter. She watched them cycle through their patrol a few times, counting carefully. At least five, perhaps more outside the camera’s view. Not ideal, but doable. She changed the feeds and started, moving closer to the screen. This one was labeled “Holding Cells,” and true to their name, one of the force cages held a prisoner: A human man her own age, or perhaps a few years younger, dark hair cut short in the back but left long and shaggy on top to the point of nearly falling in his eyes and parted on the left. His lanky frame leaned against the back of the force cage, just shy of brushing the field on either side of his leather jacketed-shoulders, and he glared out toward the door, mouth set in a deep scowl. He wasn’t wearing a miner’s uniform and the fact that he was in a force cage made him seem... less than reputable, but Meetra wasn’t in a position to spurn good fortune based on its packaging.

She rose from the desk, stepping carefully over the former security chief, and tested the lockers. The first two were empty and the third was locked. Using the vibrocutter, she carefully leveraged the door open, revealing a small cache of first aid kits and a long staff-like tool. It was double-ended, with a sharp spike at the bottom and a glowing beacon at the top. Not a lightsaber, but it would do. She dropped the vibrocutter on the desk and picked up the staff, twirling it experimentally. Weight was still off, but she’d fought with worse. With a last pitying look at the bodies of the security chief and the young miner, she exited the room.

Emerging into the communications blister, Meetra moved forward slowly, staff held out away from her in a defensive stance, listening for the clattering of spidery legs. The first droid passed in front of her and she lunged toward it before its sensors could register her presence, smashing the beacon’s sharp point into what passed for its “face.” Another droid came after the first and Meetra threw herself to the side as it fired on her. A third robot clattered up behind her, trapping her between them. She waited, timing her reaction, and launched herself upward as the droids fired, their bolts tearing through their less-protected fronts. Meetra landed in a crouch, using the staff to help break her fall. She staggered to her feet, breathing a little heavier than she should have been.

More clicking echoed from her right and another droid appeared from near the communications console, blasters already spooling up. Meetra rolled behind one of the fried droids, baiting the other closer. Single-mindedly, it charged around her impromptu cover and she swung the staff along the ground, sweeping the droid off its feet and slamming the pike into its center. She kicked it away, pulling the beacon free, and whirled as the sound of multiple metal legs rushed toward her. 

The droid lunged toward her, almost too close to avoid, and she threw herself backward as it slammed one of its blasters at her skull. She flipped the staff and tried to stab the droid, but it managed to catch the weapon between its front appendages and wrest it from her hands. Meetra slipped backward, feet coming out from under her, and hit the floor hard as the droid lurched forward. Without thinking, she threw a hand out in a futile gesture, reaching for something long since beyond her grasp.

But this time, for the first time in ten years, something flared to life within her, small but warm. The droid flew backward, colliding with the wall hard enough to stun it. Operating almost purely on instinct, she sprang forward, snatched up the staff, and slammed the spike into the machine before it could recover, getting in a second strike for good measure. She dropped the staff and stepped backward from the robotic corpse, hesitantly reaching out for the Force again, tears filling her eyes when it answered once more. It wasn’t much compared to what it had been, a match where there was once an inferno, a single note instead of a symphony, but it was there.

 _”Ah, you hear it. It is faint, but it is still there.”_ Kreia’s voice was louder now, as if she were in the room with Meetra rather than speaking from a long distance.

Meetra answered her in kind, reaching out for the old woman’s consciousness. It felt stumbling and clumsy, but she still remembered how to do it.  _“It has been a decade... I had almost forgotten. But it doesn’t feel like it did. It feels like it is coming from across a great distance.”_

 _”Do not turn away from it. Listen... feel it echoing within you.”_ Kreia’s warning was gentle, but firm.  _“You will need it if we are to survive and escape this place. Find a way to open the emergency access and we will be on our way."_

 _"There's still more station to search,"_ Meetra reminded her, ignoring the faint sense of disapproval that colored her connection with the old woman.  _"I found another survivor, though. He's being held in a cell here in the communication blister."_

There was a long pause on Kreia's end.  _"Be mindful... his thoughts are difficult to read. But you have nothing to fear from this one, and he may yet prove useful."_

 _"As long as he doesn't try to kill me before we get off this station, I'll consider it a win."_ Meetra broke the connection, scooped up her staff, and headed back the way she had come, veering off to the right of the door through which she had entered the communications blister, where another door was set into the wall. She cycled it and entered, beacon held loosely away from her to show she meant no harm. The dark-haired man had straightened from his earlier slouch and was leaning as near to the electric field of the cage as he dared, likely intrigued by the noise from her fight with the droids. His dark brown eyes swept up and down her form, clinging to her curves, and his shocked expression morphed to something between a smirk and a sneer. 

“Nice outfit.” He had a pleasant enough tenor, though the leering ruined it somewhat. “What, did you miners change regulation uniforms while I’ve been in here?”

His gaze and mocking tone were acute reminders of how thin and form-fitting Meetra’s medical undergarment was. With all the fighting and her sudden reconnection to the Force, she had forgotten Kreia’s advice about clothing. Ah, well. She’d made worse first impressions. “I’m not part of the station’s crew.”

”You don’t say.”

She resisted the urge to purse her lips. An old friend had once told her it made her look a little like the back end of a tooka. “My name is Meetra Surik. Who are you?”

He hesitated, smirk fading a bit. She could practically hear the wheels turning in his mind, weighing his options, judging whether it was worth it to trust her. Abruptly, he hitched the grin back into place, posture relaxing as if there had never been any tension to begin with. “Atton. Atton Rand.” He gestured at the cage’s field with a wave of his hand. “Excuse me if I don’t shake hands. The field only causes mild electrical burns.” He tipped his head to the side, hair threatening to cover an eye again. “So, beautiful, can you help me out?”


	4. And the Not-A-Jedi

One side of Meetra's mouth quirked up in a half smile and she anchored the staff's point to the floor, leaning her weight lazily against it. They were safe enough for the time being to indulge in a little banter, and it would be satisfying to wipe the smug look off his face. "Why don't we start with why you're in there?" She leaned forward slightly, crossing an arm over her chest. "And keep your eyes up."

Atton's eyes snapped back up to hers and his grin slipped, revealing a petulance just beneath the surface. He leaned away from the field and gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Security claimed I violated some trumped-up regulation or another." He gestured at the camera overhead. "Take it up with them if you want, but they stopped listening to me shortly before they stopped feeding me." He affected a melancholic sigh and shook his head. "Now that's criminal."

"They're dead."

Atton straightened, genuine surprise on his face. "Well. I guess that explains some things." He ran a hand through his hair, tousling it further. "So... what now?"

"I believe there's a ship we can use in the hanger," Meetra revealed, though she was careful to omit the freighter's name and Kreia's existence. Atton seemed relatively harmless enough, but trust was a hard thing for her to give out anymore. At least, when impossible old women weren't taking away any other option.

His cocky attitude slid back into place along with his smirk. "How fortuitous. You shut down this cell's security field, and I can reroute the emergency systems so we can get to the hanger. We grab your hypothetical ship and then we fly out of here." Atton arched an eyebrow, grin widening. "What do you say, gorgeous? You want off this station as bad as I do."

"Meetra."

Atton frowned. "What?"

"My name. Not 'gorgeous.' Not 'beautiful.' Meetra."

He chuckled, whether out of disbelief or genuine amusement she wasn't sure. "Alright. What do you say, _Meetra_?"

She hesitated, weighing her options, but there was really no choice. She crossed to a console near the force cages, finding the release command easily. The field flickered briefly and then died, and Atton stepped out after waving a cautious hand through the air where the electric current had been. He gave her a lopsided smile. "Thought you weren't going to let me out for a second."

"Me, too." Meetra gestured toward the door to the communications blister with the beacon. "After you."

Atton sketched a mock bow as he passed her, and Meetra rolled her eyes before following him from the room. She was starting to regret her determination to rescue any and all survivors. They made their way to the blister's command console, and Atton dropped into the chair and booted up the terminal without hesitation. Meetra stood just behind and to the side of him, watching the screen over his shoulder. "I'll walk you through what I'm doing." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "For transparency's sake. This console is set on automatic hail; you may have heard it when you came in." Meetra nodded, but hid her unconscious arrival state. She didn't quite trust him that much. "The asteroid drift is constantly changing, so it transmits up to date asteroid charts to incoming vessels, so they don't get crushed into space dust." His fingers danced across the terminal's keyboard as he spoke, and Meetra took careful note of his obvious skill. "The hail warns them to keep their distance until the charts are transmitted, then provides docking instructions. Thing is, you can bounce that same transmission back to the comm here..." He tapped a few last keys with a flourish. "And suddenly, you've got access to the communications system from the inside."

"Impressive," Meetra admitted. He looked back at her and grinned, a genuine one this time. "I'm starting to imagine several reasons why security decided to lock you up."

"Good looks  _and_ a sense of humor." Atton turned back to the console. "Now, all we need to do is re-activate the turbolifts, cancel the emergency lockdown, and - " He broke off abruptly, the confidence leaching out of his expression. "Well, that's a problem."

Meetra braced her hand against the back of the chair and leaned over his shoulder to get a better look. "What's wrong?"

"I can't reroute the system." Atton jabbed at a portion of the screen as if it had done him a great personal wrong. "It's been severed from the main hub, after it was locked down remotely - clean cut, too. Someone didn't want the miners calling for help, which means we can't, either." He leaned back, shoulders slumping in defeat. "If there were a better definition of trapped, I've yet to see it."

"Is there _anything_ we can do from here?"

Atton shook his head. "No. All we have is communication, for all the good shouting into a vacuum will do us."

Meetra straightened, tapping her fingers against her staff in thought. "There could be other survivors on the station. We could try to contact them, see if there's anything they can do from their end."

"Knock yourself out." He tapped a few keys and stood, moving out of the way for Meetra to sit down. She leaned her staff against the console and activated the comm for the miners' dormitories with a click. "If there is anyone receiving this, please respond." Crackling static was the only answer. She repeated the hail, but received the same result. She switched over to the channel for the hangers and repeated the request. Almost immediately, she was answered with several sharp whistles and beeps.

"Is that a droid?" Atton asked, confusion and disbelief coloring his voice.

"Of all things," Meetra replied, then to the droid: "Slow down, please. I can't understand you." Her understanding of Binary was nearly as rusty as her combat skills as it was, and the droid's agitation wasn't helping. The chirps and beeps came again, a clear effort being made to deliver the information more slowly. "He's an astromech... Are you operational?" Several low whistles, punctuated by a single beep. "Okay, that's good. We're trapped on the administration level. Can you unlock the turbolifts from there?" The droid answered in the negative with a long scaling-down whistle. "Is there any way out of here besides the turbolifts?" A single beep, followed by a long pause, and then a burst of electronic whirring. "I'd rather risk it than be trapped here. Be careful." The droid beeped once, and then the line reverted to white noise. Meetra shut off the comm and leaned away from the terminal with a sigh.

"You could actually understand that?" Atton asked. He leaned back against the console so that he faced her, legs crossed at the ankle and arms crossed over his chest.

"An old friend of mine spoke fluent Binary. She taught me a bit of it."

"And you trust the little tin can?"

"He's stuck here, too. He doesn't lose anything trying to help us."

"Great. Sooo, we just wait?" Atton made a face. “Trash compactor better come through.”

”I think we can trust him.” She glanced up at him, looking him up and down. Superficially, he didn’t seem threatening, but the way he held himself, even at rest, told a different story. “What happened here?”

”You found the bodies. You tell me.” He gestured back toward the holding cells. “Didn’t really have front row seats.”

”The security crew was killed by the droids.” Meetra pointed at the lifeless husks scattered across the communications blister. “I found reports of accidents over the last few days, all involving droids. A virus, maybe?"

"Or they were reprogrammed."

"To attack the miners? Who would do that?" She did her best to keep any accusation out of her voice, but if Atton's pointed look was any indication, she'd failed. He didn't comment on it, though, merely shrugging in response. "Either way, it can't be the only thing. I've only found a few bodies. It seems like the facility was deserted even before the droids attacked. You've been here a while. Did anything strange happen with the miners?"

"You mean before or after that Jedi showed up?" Meetra stiffened, but kept her face carefully blank. "Either way, it's a real short story as far as it involves me. " Atton shifted to a more comfortable position, leaning further back against the console. If he'd noticed Meetra's discomfort, he didn't mention it. "You see, this Jedi shows up, and you know what that means - where there's one Jedi, the Republic will be crawling up your ion engine in no time. But the story gets better. See, some of the miners get it into their ferrocete skulls that since the Jedi's unconscious, they can collect the bounty the Exchange has posted for live Jedi."

"The Exchange?"

Atton frowned at her. "You don't know what the Exchange is?" When she shook her head, he raised an eyebrow. "It's a big crime outfit, mostly operates out of Nar Shaddaa: spice running, gun trafficking, slave trading. Now I guess they're posting bounties on Jedi." He waved a hand, as if brushing away any further questions. "Anyway, what passes for the law around here didn't like the idea of handing over the Jedi, so the two groups started fighting. That's about the time I got introduced to my new accommodations. Then there was some big explosion, and I was sitting there for a long time, until you showed up in your underwear and things got a lot better." He smirked in the face of Meetra's flat glare, but privately she found his behavior reassuring. Whether he was merely teasing her or being genuinely inappropriate, it meant he didn't see her as a threat; hopefully, she wouldn't have to view him as one, either.

"Why does the Exchange want to capture Jedi?" she asked, redirecting the conversation before Atton's eyes had the chance to wander. "Are Jedi interfering with their operations?"

"Don't know much about it," Atton admitted. "Maybe the Exchange wants one as a trophy, or somebody's got something against Jedi and is looking to collect." He chuckled. "Of course, the second one could be half the galaxy. Not many Jedi left, though. Wouldn't surprise me if the bounty's pretty high. "

Something tightened in Meetra's chest at the implication of Atton's words. She hadn't expected to be welcomed back or even acknowledged by her former comrades, but the idea that there would be no one there to shun her was somehow worse. "What do you mean? What happened to the Jedi?"

"Are you serious?" The open incredulity on his face made her worried she'd slipped by asking the question. "How long have you been out of the world?" She shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. It appeared to work, as Atton started to explain. "The ones that weren't killed in the Jedi civil war ended up switching off the lightsabers a long time ago. Word is, there's not even a Jedi Council anymore, but who knows?"

"A war between Jedi... Not Jedi and Sith?"

"Not as far as I know. From what I heard, it was Revan, Malak, and the Jedi that went to join them in the Mandalorian Wars." The tightness in Meetra's chest constricted sharply, making it suddenly difficult to breathe. "They turned against the other Jedi and had a scrap that almost laid waste to the galaxy. Then, like all Sith, Revan and Malak turned on each other." Atton tipped his head to the side, half-smile still faintly in place. "You really haven't heard any of this?"

"Like you said, I've been out of the world." Meetra fidgeted, twisting her fingers together as she absorbed Atton's story. A Jedi civil war and Revan and Malak falling to the Dark Side... this wasn't part of the rumors that had made it to the Outer Rim. Her stomach churned at the knowledge, old guilt mixing with new anxiety. "I had heard rumors, but not of war. I'd heard... Revan saved the Republic."

Atton scoffed. "Well, it would be the least she could do after nearly destroying it. All I heard was Revan returned to pay Malak back for trying to kill her in the first place." His grin was all the warning she had before his mocking tone returned. "You know women." He gestured toward the terminal. "Try to raise that squawky scrap heap again. Need to make sure it didn't shut down and leave us high and dry."

"He'll contact us when he figures out how to open the hatches," Meetra countered. She still needed information, both about the Jedi civil war and the miners' disappearances. "I still have more questions. I've been in a kolto tank for the last few days, and I have no ide-"

"Look, not like your half-naked interrogation isn't a personal fantasy of mine," Atton interrupted, shaking his head and waving away her protests, "but..." He trailed off, brow furrowing as he stared at her. "'A kolto tank?'"

Meetra went still. "Yes?"

Atton straightened and took a step back from her, his expression a frightening combination of surprise, confusion, and alarm. "You're the Jedi." When she didn't respond, a flicker of anger crossed his face. "You are!"

"I'm not a Jedi." Meetra kept her voice level, resisting the urge to reach for the beacon at her side. 

He sneered at her denial. "Right. So, half the station's crew had a mass hallucination and decided to sell a non-Jedi to the Exchange?"

"They... were misinformed. They assumed I'm something I'm not."

"That's a load of bantha druk."

"It's the truth." Meetra took a deep breath and turned back to the terminal. "Believe what you want, but I am no Jedi."

"Fine." She looked back at him in surprise. "I'll believe what I want."

"What would it change?" In her frustration, the volume of her voice finally got away from her. "If I were a Jedi, what would it change?"

Several emotions chased each other across Atton's face, but confusion won out in the end. "I'd wonder why you needed me."

"If I were a Jedi, I wouldn't."

Before Atton could respond, the terminal began to beep loudly. The two stared at it, and then at each other before Atton gestured for Meetra to move. She rose and allowed him to sit down, leaning over his shoulder again as he began to type. "Well, what do you know - that little cargo cylinder came through."

Meetra frowned, concern suppressing her relief. "He should have contacted us. Something's wrong."

"It's probably just recharging its batteries," Atton said dismissively. "If it got the turbolifts working, then we should have a clear run to the hanger. We can, uh, finish this conversation once we're off the station."

"He didn't unlock the turbolifts."

Atton turned to stare at her. "What?"

"He couldn't; they've been locked manually." Meetra gestured toward the corridor leading to the medical wing. "I told him to unlock the emergency hatch."

"The emergency hatch? The one that leads down into the mining tunnels - that emergency hatch?"

"Is there another one that leads somewhere else?"

"No, but - that's not the point." Meetra backed up as Atton stood abruptly. "Don't tell me you're taking that hatch down into the mining tunnels." When she shrugged, he shook his head. "That explosion I heard came from below. There's nothing down there except superheated rock and collapsed tunnels. You'd be an idiot to go down there."

Meetra spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "It might be our only option."

"And you might die. I don't really want that on my conscience."

"It's better I risk my life than yours," Meetra said firmly. "Where would the controls for the turbolifts be?"

Atton ran a hand through his hair, clearly still struggling with her decision. "There might be an override in maintenance."

"And I can get there through the tunnels?"

"Yeah." He exhaled heavily, discomfort written in every movement. "You're either really brave or really crazy - or both." Meetra smiled despite herself, and he responded with another genuine grin, though it was weaker than before. "All right - I'll try to monitor things from up here. The only thing moving down there is likely to be mining droids, so don't be playing hero too hard. Oh, and take this." He pulled something small out of one of his jacket's pockets and tossed it toward her.

Meetra caught the object, opening her hand to reveal an earpiece. She looked up to see Atton putting a similar device in his ear. "And where did you get these?"

He raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Does it matter?" She chuckled and put the earpiece in. "I may be able to guide you through the tunnels from up here. Don't know if the signal will hold if you get too deep, though." He paused, warring emotions on clear display. "Be careful, Meetra."

"Stay safe." Meetra collected her staff and headed out of the communications blister, leaving Atton to watch her walk away. Once outside the hatch, she paused and took a deep breath, then she cycled the door and entered the tunnels.


	5. Into the Depths

The further Meetra descended toward the mining tunnels, the more accurate Atton's warning about the heat became. A long ladder connected the escape hatch to - presumably, as she still couldn't see it - the floor of the mining tunnels, and even halfway down, the temperature had risen to a level that registered as uncomfortable even through the thin undergarment.  She paused to rest for a moment, the air beginning to burn nearly as much as her muscles were. Between the fights with the droids and the long climb, her body was beginning to feel the decade's dearth of upkeep. 

A burst of white noise in her ear nearly startled her off the ladder before it gradually resolved into Atton's voice. "Can you read me?" The transmission was tinny and shot through with static.

Meetra wrapped an arm around the rung in front of her, freeing a hand to touch the commlink in her ear. "Barely - there's a lot of interference."

"Probably caused by that explosion." A brief pause accompanied by the faint clicking of keys. "Looks like there's a route down to the fuel depot. Well, if the passages haven't collapsed. That explosion knocked out most of the sensors."

"Oh, good. I was thinking this wouldn't be a challenge."

"What would the fun be in that?" Atton chuckled. "There should be an emergency crate near the bottom of the shaft; you might be able to find something useful in there. And watch yourself. There's a lot of droid broadcasts in that area, but I can't pin them down."

Meetra glanced down, squinting in the low lighting. She could just make out the faint blip of the beacon at the top of her staff, presumably lying on solid ground. She'd tossed it from the top of the shaft earlier, both to test the distance and out of an inability to carry it with her. There didn't appear to be anything else down there with it. "Thanks for the warning. If you detect anything, signal me."

"Will do - and be careful down there." The static cut off sharply, leaving behind an echoing silence. Meetra continued to climb down, forcing herself to ignore both the rising temperature and her screaming muscles. Several long, almost agonizing minutes later, the ladder rungs ended and her feet found the floor of the shaft. With her eyes fully adjusted to the darkness, she scanned her surroundings, but for the moment, she appeared to be alone. Scooping up her staff, she moved forward until she reached a door, cycled it, and stepped through.

For a moment, everything was white, her vision blinded by the change in lighting. Meetra dropped into a defensive crouch, staff held protectively in front of her, but she neither heard or sensed anything nearby. Gradually, her sight returned, revealing a room similar to the ones she had passed through previously: sterile chrome and ceramic with little aesthetic design. In the corner stood a lone crate; no doubt the emergency supplies Atton had mentioned. She opened it, pulling out more medpacks, a headband and harness of some sort, a few energy shields, two handheld mining blasters, and an actual vibroblade. Setting these aside, she dug deeper in the canister, coming up with a swath of blue and gold fabric.

The commlink crackled to life. "Find the supplies?"

"Right where you said," Meetra replied, unzipping and stepping into the mining uniform. It wasn't quite her size - it hung loosely on her frame and the sleeves fell past her wrists - but it provided a welcome layer of protection... and decency. "I found some weapons and mining equipment. A uniform, too."

"Dammit." Meetra paused in the act of zipping up the suit, mouth curving up into a half-smile of bemusement at Atton's exhalation. He began to backpedal, as if only just realizing what he had said. "Uh... I mean, good - good to hear it. No sense in you running around half-naked, it's distracting.... you know, for the droids." She smothered her laughter and didn't reply, choosing instead to let him wallow in the faux pas. "A-anyway, what kind of gear did you find?"

"There's a harness; looks like it goes around my waist and shoulders." As she spoke, Meetra pulled it on over the mining uniform. "I also found some kind of headband. There's sensors on either side."

"Survey gear," he replied. "It's designed to spot and protect you against sonic mines. The safety harness will be helpful if you try to disarm them. Not that I'd advise it." Meetra filed the information away. She had experience disarming mines during the Mandalorian Wars, but she kept silent. She didn't want to make Atton any more distrustful of her than he already was, or give him a reason to become a threat. She slipped the headband on, allowing it to rest just above her ears. The sensors projected an overlay in front of her, though nothing registered at the moment. "Did you find any mining shields?"

"A few. Are they different from regular energy shields?"

"Not much. They're designed to protect the miners against lasers and heat. Should work against the droids. You still want to be careful, though. They're not as durable, and they won't last more than a few hits."

Meetra strapped one of the shields over her left wrist, slipping the others into one of the pouches on the safety harness, along with the handful of medkits. "Understood. Anything else?"

"Uh, just one more thing." The was uneasiness in Atton's voice. "I've narrowed down some of the ID signals. If the numbers are right... you're sharing those tunnels with a battalion of mining droids." Meetra groaned inwardly, muscles twinging at just the thought of more fighting. "They rely on thermal sensors to get around, and that explosion down there kicked up so much heat and steam that it may blind them a bit.. but not much. You could try to sneak past them, but it'll be risky."

"And if they do spot me?"

"That's why you took the big stick." It was easy to hear the smirk in his words and she smiled despite herself. Crass and full of himself Atton might be, but when he showed confidence, it was infectious. "Actually, there's got to be some central controller down there. Look for a terminal by the main access shaft; that'd be the governing intelligence. If you can reach that, you may be able to shut the droids down, or at least get them back on their original programming." 

"I'll keep an eye out. Let me know if anything changes." Meetra tapped the commlink, cutting the broadcast. As much as Atton's chattering put her at ease, it would be harder to focus with him talking in her ear. She unbuckled the harness briefly and slid the mining blasters onto one of the straps, triple checking the safeties for her own peace of mind. The vibroblade she attached to the uniform's belt. Retrieving her staff, she headed out into the tunnels, the steam and heat causing a sheen of sweat to form instantly on her brow. 

Before long, the metal hallways gave way to proper stone tunnels, fissures of steam bursting out of cracks in the rocks. Just ahead, Meetra could make out a few droids milling about. They hadn't spotted her yet, and she hugged the tunnel wall as she passed them, hiding her body heat in the steam. Further in, the corridor opened up into a wide room, effectively making it impossible for her to sneak past. Three droids patrolled the area, spidery legs creating an unholy cacophony against the stone floor. Meetra crouched at the entrance to the room, scanning their movements. When the nearest droid turned toward her, she lunged forward, making a sweeping motion with her hand as she ran. The Force answered as readily as it had before, and the droid flew forward, smashing into the rock wall. She was upon it before it could recover, bringing the staff down in a sharp strike and caving in the droid's faceplate. It twitched, spindly legs flailing, and she struck it again, the time with the spike.

The droid went still, but the commotion had attracted the other two. They clattered forward, raising their blasters, and Meetra slapped the energy shield on her wrist before rolling to the side. The shield hummed to life, a barrier rising around her. One of the droid's bolts struck it, fizzling out against the opposing energy. Though she was unharmed, the impact still sent Meetra stumbling, forcing her to plant her staff against the ground to steady herself. Another bolt glanced off the shield, causing it to flicker. Footing regained, she darted forward underneath the nearer droid's guard and levered her staff beneath it, flipping it onto its side between her and the remaining droid. Spinning the beacon, she stabbed its point into the prone droid, putting it out of commission before it could right itself.

The last droid scuttled from side to side, trying to get a clear shot around her makeshift cover. Keeping low, Meetra focused on a pile of rubble, reaching out with the Force. It still weak and small, nothing compared to the torrent it had been over a decade ago. It  _felt_ different, as well; before, the Force had flowed through her, a natural extension of her will. Now, it felt like it was echoing, ricocheting and distorting within her. Part of her was too relieved that she could use the Force again to care, while another part was terrified it meant that her returning control was only temporary. She managed to lift one of the bigger rocks, sending it slamming into the droid and crushing two of its legs. It struggled to pull itself free and Meetra leaped over the broken droid, slamming her staff into its trapped compatriot. She brought her staff down twice more before it stopped moving. 

Leaving the droid massacre behind, she continued forward, coming to a sharp halt when a translucent dome appeared on her survey gear's overlay. As if on cue, a crackle of static preceded Atton's voice on the commlink. "Watch your step - I'm picking up a lot of sonic mines down there. Don't run unless you have to. Makes them harder to spot."

"You have impeccable timing; I'm looking at one now." She glanced down the hallway, frowning when more signals appeared. "Make that several. Why are there so many mines down here?"

"The droids," Atton explained. "They're designed to set and arm charges for mining. If they set the charges after they went rogue, they may have used them to try and kill the miners..." There was a long pause, and Meetra could guess his next words. "Probably might try to use them to kill you, too. Some of the droids, the excavators mainly, may try to use any undeployed charges as projectiles, so... yeah.” He cleared his throat, as if delivering bad news physically pained him. “Also, the super-heated steam I mentioned earlier? I’m reading pockets with temperatures ahead of you high enough to cook the skin off your bones.”

Meetra grimaced. “Thank you for  _that_ image.”

“Hey, would you rather me be honest or pleasant?”

”Point taken.”

”The mining shields should protect you, as long as you move quickly.” More keystrokes replaced Atton’s voice for a moment. “Actually, once you’re through that, there’s a big open area; might be the main ventilation shaft. Best chance to find the central controller.”

"Got it." Meetra moved forward slowly, careful to stay out of the transparent domes projected by the survey gear's sensors. She stopped briefly to disarm a few mines, just in case, stowing them carefully in one of the harness' pockets. Further down the tunnel, a thick wall of steam rose from floor to ceiling, and a wall of heat slapped her in the face as she approached, drenching her mining uniform with sweat near instantaneously. Meetra hesitated, then tapped the energy shield on her wrist, the barrier surging up around her with a gentle hum, took a deep breath, and sprinted forward. Halfway through, her staff began to burn her palm and she released it with a cry, but she didn’t stop to try and recover it. The shield fizzled out as she staggered out of the steam, stumbling into the tunnel wall as she tried to catch her breath.

As she struggled to recover, Meetra lifted her hand, inspecting her stinging palm. There was a definite redness accompanying the pain, but otherwise, she appeared uninjured. Pushing away from the wall, she swapped the exhausted shield for a fresh one and continued down the tunnel. After several minutes, the stone began to transition into chrome and ceramic again, eventually opening out into a large area, with a wide shaft going down further into the station’s core. At four points around the top of the opening were large reactors, all shielded by visible purple energy. A walkway bisected the mouth of the shaft, a platform situated in the middle, and prowling around the outer ring... at least a dozen mining droids. However, it seemed none of them had spotted her yet. Meetra detached the vibroblade from her harness and crept toward the platform, moving slowly to avoid the droids’ attention. Atton’s tip about the heat obscuring their sensors appeared to still hold true, and she made it to the platform unscathed.

A terminal sat on one side of the platform, with a small container next to it. Meetra tried to open it, but the mechanism refused to budge, likely affected by the heat. She fished one of the deactivated mines out of the harness pocket and attached it to the container, primed it, and retreated to a safe distance. After a few seconds, the mine blew, popping the top of the crate. Meetra held her position, eyeing the nearest droids, but none of them even turned her way. She crept back to the box and rooted through it, coming my up with a few repair parts and a computer spike. She plugged the latter into the terminal, letting the program suppress the computer’s security while she brought up the main commands.

As per Atton’s earlier assumption, the terminal was indeed the controlling intelligence for the droids, and the computer spike gave Meetra access to the main functions. She changed the commands back to their defaults, instructing the droids to cease their assault on organics. Hesitantly, she made her way to the other side of the walkway and approached one of the lumbering machines. It turned toward her and she froze, tightening her grip on the vibroblade, but the droid trundled past her without hesitation. Meetra let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, reattached the weapon to her harness, and began to explore.

Some time and a thorough search later, she discovered no conventional way out of the ventilation shaft, save a narrow passageway behind one of the reactors; perhaps maintenance access or something similar. However, the barrier surrounding it prevented her access. She retreated to the terminal and queued up the main commands again, sifting through them until she spotted an option to turn off the containment fields. She hesitated, as turning the fields off seemed like a rather poor choice of action, but she was out of options. Meetra selected the command and executed it, the purple barriers around the reactors vanishing as their humming faded. She crossed back to the other side of the shaft and started around the reactor, jumping a bit when Atton's voice materialized through the commlink.

"Hey, I'm picking up some strange readings - What exactly are you doing down there?" His tone was a combination of confused and strained, and it immediately put Meetra on edge.

"What kind of readings?" She was almost afraid to ask.

"The containment fields in the mining tunnel are shutting down."

Meetra blanched. "Uh... hypothetically speaking, if they had been shut down, say, manually to get to an access tunnel, what would happen?"

Atton was silent for a moment, and she could practically see the disbelief on his face. When he spoke again, however, the urgency in his voice was clear. "You need to get out of there before they vent fuel to surface of the asteroid through the tunnels." There was faint frantic clicking in the background. "I may be able to keep it contained until you reach the turbolift to the fuel depot, but not for much longer, so you have to move. I'm also locking down access to administration to keep the blast from spreading. Get going - because where you are is going to get real hot, real soon."

She didn't need to be told twice. Meetra bolted down the service shaft, dodging a few more errant mines and droids, as well as a body or two as she ran. Turning a sharp corner at the end of the hall, she nearly skidded into the turbolift doors, catching herself just in time. She slapped the call button, relieved when the lift opened up almost immediately, and jumped in, thumbing the door close button repeatedly while stabbing "Fuel Depot" option on the lift's control screen with her other hand. The door slid shut and the lift began to move just as a rumbling started to build beneath her. The ride seemed agonizing slow as the sounds of building pressure and the ambient temperature increased, to the point where Meetra wasn't sure which was making her perspire more. Both had almost reached unbearable levels when the lift finally came to a stop, door whooshing open, and Meetra threw herself out, using the forward momentum to drop into a combat roll and put herself further away from the turbolift. She started to stand when a massive explosion rocked the entire facility, knocking her back to her knees. Sparks and smoke fountained out of the turbolift before the door snapped shut, flooding the hall Meetra stood in with the smell of burning fuel. 

Meetra stumbled away from the trashed lift, one hand against the wall to keep herself steady. She glanced briefly into an open room on her left and froze. Lying on the floor was a red-haired man with goggles perched on his forehead, dressed in a mining uniform and clearly as dead as any of the bodies she had encountered so far. The scorch marks and ragged wounds on his skin and clothing spoke to an attack by the mining droids. Her surprise stemmed from the fact that she had seen him before, in one of the security chief's holo-logs. The two had had a heated exchange about the malfunctioning droids, and she guessed he was the head of maintenance or perhaps engineering. She hesitantly approached the body and knelt next to it, examining the man's wounds and checking his clothes for clues. She was so absorbed in her search that she nearly missed the clank of robotic feet approaching from behind her; once the sound registered, she whirled, one hand outstretched as she reached for the Force.

The droid stopped short and Meetra lowered her arm, frowning. It wasn't one of the mining droids, of that she was fairly certain. Humanoid in shape, silver in color, it stood a bit taller than her, with red sensors where eyes would be in its faceplate. It was unarmed, as much as a droid could be while still likely being capable of great strength, but that did little to reassure her. When she didn't attack, the droid spread its arms, as if in a gesture of welcome, and spoke in a clear, pleasant voice:

"Greeting: It is a pleasure to see you alive, Master, provided my receptors are not off-focus. How may I be of service?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone waiting on this chapter, I've got to apologize for how long this took to get out. In addition to some difficulty plotting everything out (which resulted in this one being longer than I like, but I'm going to leave it at this point), I didn't have the most conducive writing environment over the last week or so. So again, major apologies, thanks for sticking with it, and I'll do my best to keep the time between updates more consistent.


	6. Interview with a Droid

Meetra frowned and took a step back from the droid, a hand drifting toward the vibroblade at her back. The robot made no move to approach her or to back away, apparently content to stare at her expectantly. As the silence dragged on, leaving anxious territory and verging on uncomfortable, Meetra cleared her throat. "Who... what are you?"

The droid perked up, seemingly delighted she was now participating in the conversation. "Answer: I am a survivor of the  _Harbinger_ , just as you were, Master. I am called HK-50. With the unexpected termination of my previous Master, you are the only organic which I may now serve."

The droid's revelation was both surprising and fortuitous for Meetra. If he'd seen anything, he could fill in the gaps in her memory. "Who was your Master?"

"Answer: The captain of the  _Harbinger_ , Master." She couldn't be sure if she imagined it, but there was a faint tone of derision beneath the droid's words, as if she were being particularly thick. "I was in transit to Telos to facilitate communications and terminate hostilities... However, we did not arrive at our intended destination."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

HK-50 shook his head, his voice still pleasant, but the undercurrent of annoyance grew more evident. "Irritated Answer: Oh, Master, it is such a long, dull story. And not terribly relevant to our current situation."

His attempt to deflect was surprising. Typically, a protocol droid would be falling all over itself to please, and HK-50's indirect refusal to answer raised several red flags. Meetra crossed her arms, fixing the droid with a stern glare. "Humor me."

If HK-50 were human, she got the sense that he would have been looking anywhere but at her. "Hesitant Explanation: That has been the subject of considerable discussion since our arrival here, Master. Many have attempted to claim you and this unit as salvage." His voice took on a lamenting tone. "I was crudely interrogated concerning our brief history together on board the  _Harbinger_... before its communications, weapons, and engines suffered the cascade failure that disabled the ship."

"Cascade failure?" 

"Pedantic Explanation: A cascade failure is - "

"I know what it is," Meetra interrupted, a little annoyed by HK-50's readiness to label her as ignorant. "I don't remember any signs indicating a failure, much less one in every faculty of the ship."

"Pointed Observation: To be fair, Master, it appears there is much you don't remember." The smugness in the droid's voice was out of place, an anomaly that raised Meetra's hackles.

"That's true. Why don't I remember any of this?"

HK-50 tapped his chin, a surprisingly human gesture. "Speculation: It is possible you were incapacitated and locked in the well-shielded cargo compartment as the Harbinger was being systematically crippled, Master."

Several of the droid's word choices gave Meetra pause; she seized on the first one. "'Incapacitated?'"

His response was immediate. "Clarification: Yes, Master. No doubt the flurry of destruction on board the  _Harbinger_ somehow drugged you into a stupor from which you could not awaken. Most curious."

"'Drugged?'"

The droid patted the air. "Placation: Merely a turn of phrase, Master. The implication that your state was due to the result of ingesting large quantities of juma juice was unintentional." He steamrolled on before she could respond. "I meant to communicate only that you were somehow rendered unconscious before you were locked securely in the cargo hold."

Meetra's hand began to creep toward the vibroblade again. HK-50's constant contradictions had her on edge. "So I wasn't sealed in the cargo hold - someone locked me in."

"Clarification: By locked, I meant 'sealed,' Master. My vocabulator seems to be malfunctioning."

"Clearly. How did I get from the  _Harbinger_ to here?"

HK-50 straightened and folded his hands behind his back. "Recitation: Following the unusual set of coincidences that led to the cascade failure in the  _Harbinger_ 's systems, we were boarded by a small freighter with unknown ID codes. It appeared to have been attacked, but still spaceworthy, and the captain wanted to study it." He gestured toward Meetra. "Your cargo compartment was breached, and you were taken on board the freighter shortly before the  _Harbinger_ 's systems began to go critical. I, too, managed to board the freighter before the destruction. We were most fortunate to have survived, Master."

"So it would seem." She hesitated. "What was the name of the freighter?"

"Answer: I believe it was a smuggler's vessel by the name of the  _Ebon Hawk."_

Meetra kept her face carefully blank. HK-50 seemed sure the two of them were the only survivors; Kreia must have been pulling her corpse act for the entire journey to Peragus, so at least she was safe. And if the droid had been trapped down here since the facility's lockdown, it was likely he didn't know about Atton. Better to keep it that way. She continued probing for information. "Why did the  _Ebon Hawk_ intercept the  _Harbinger_?"

HK-50 lifted his arms and let them fall, his approximation of a shrug. "Speculation: I do not know. Perhaps it was its intention to play dead, then kidnap you off the  _Harbinger_ and rob me of my bounty."

Another incriminating turn of phrase. "'Bounty?'"

"Clarification: By bounty, I refer to your life, Master. It would pain me to see you damaged in any way." Though his voice didn't change, Meetra was sure she heard a mocking undertone to the words.

She raised a hand to halt the droid's explanations. "How did we get here? Did you pilot the ship?"

HK-50's demeanor turned dismissive again and he offered up another vague explanation. "Apology: My memory core cannot provide a clear answer on that point, Master. Suffice to say that once we arrived at this floating rock, out situation became much clearer."

Meetra took a deep breath, forcing down her frustration, and indicated the facility with an expansive gesture. "Fine. Can you tell me what happened here?"

The droid nodded once. "Explanation: An HK protocol droid is a valuable piece of property, but the miners were far more interested in you, Master. Jedi are worth much more in certain... exclusive markets across the galaxy." Meetra recalled Atton's description of the Exchange and she shuddered inwardly. HK-50 continued, his words taking on a slightly bitter tone. "Painful Admission: I must confess to feelings of inferiority at the speculated difference between my value and the price for your capture."

"Why did they think I was a Jedi?" Meetra asked, ignoring HK-50's bellyaching. If she was going to get off this rock, she didn't have time to soothe a protocol droid's bruised ego.

"Surprised Answer: Why, I told them, Master. You are the exiled Jedi who served with Revan in the Mandalorian Wars, are you not?" Meetra's chest tightened painfully, her breath catching in her throat. How did a simple protocol droid know her past... and who had given him the information? Her thoughts chased each other in frantic circles, nearly causing her to miss HK-50's followup. "I hope all of this unpleasantness has not been the result of a miscommunication. If so, then the problem lies with the coreward databases, which are notoriously spotty."

A lie. The Council would never have released the truth of her punishment. Her eyes narrowed before she could stop herself, but HK-50 didn’t seem to notice her reaction, and he continued to drone on. “Recitation: Because they believed you to be a Jedi, they debated what to do with you as you lay unconscious in the medical bay. One group seemed intent on selling you as property. The other group opposed this.”

”Who won?”

”Observation: No one, Master.” If the droid could have chuckled, Meetra got the unnerving impression he wouldn’t have been able to speak for laughing. “Three standard hours after the division became apparent, accidents began to occur throughout the facility. A result of improper maintenance, I believe.”

This, at least, seemed to line up with what Meetra had already discovered. “The mining droids turned hostile.”

HK-50 nodded once. “Assumption: A degradation of the behavioral cores. Crude models are prone to such failures, resulting in murderous rampages. The mortality rate of organics in the facility rose quickly.”

”What about the rest of the miners? There aren’t enough bodies to account for the entire crew.”

”Explanation: Many miners began to join you in the medical bay as a cascade of flawlessly-timed detonations occurred in insulated gas pockets in the lower levels of the facility.” He gave the odd shrug again. “The miners were herded into emergency sections of the station by the explosions, quickly and efficiently cutting them off from communications and facility control... but sadly enough, not the ventilation systems.” He didn’t sound particularly saddened to Meetra. “You see, the explosions had damaged specific sections of this facility’s ventilation systems, causing a slow, lethal build up of toxic fumes in the dormitory level.”

”Did you do this?” The implied accusation was out of Meetra’s mouth before she could catch herself. Anticipating the droid’s possible reaction, she reached for the Force, ready to fling HK-50 away from her.

Surprisingly, the droid was more indignant than angry. “Defensive Answer: Master, I am a protocol droid, not a well-crafted assassin droid of unrivaled sophistication. It is highly unlikely I possess the knowledge of how to reprogram the memory cores of base-worker class droids into killing machines, let alone to terminate the organics at this facility, utilizing only Aratech 500 series laser mining drills and explosives fashioned from proton middle cores.”

”... That’s pretty specific.”

”Admission: I cannot and will not attempt to change your mind, Master.” The disgust in HK-50’s voice was the verbal equivalent of the droid rolling his eyes. “I would urge you to consider that your kolto tank treatments may have caused some distortion.” He paused and then changed tack, waving his hands in another placating gesture. “Suggestion: I have chosen to turn my efforts to answering the question as to how we may depart this drifting disaster area as quickly as possible. It is only a matter of time before a ship or freighter docks with the Peragus facility. When that occurs, we shall depart this place... forever."

Meetra kept her silence, digesting the information the droid had provided. If he was waiting for a ship to arrive, he might be unaware of the  _Ebon Hawk_ 's presence. If she could get to the freighter, she, Kreia, and Atton could escape without HK-50 following. If the droid wanted to wait for a ride, she hoped he'd be stuck there until the facility fell into a sun. "Wait all you want, but I'm getting out of here on my own."

HK-50 tipped his head to the side. "Condescending Retraction: I believe you will do your best, Master. This facility would have to be nailed down with droid-level precision to prevent your escape." Meetra felt a small sense of satisfaction at the tinge of annoyance in his voice. He turned and started to clank away, clearly done with the conversation.

"Wait." The droid paused, turning to fully to face her again. "How do I get to the dormitories from here?"

"Incredulous Assumption: Clearly, the kolto treatments have affected your short-term memory, Master. I recall mentioning the ventilation system being compromised. Any organics in the dormitories will be deceased."

"We don't know that for sure."

"Theory: You could walk across the surface of the asteroid to the dormitory airlock," HK-50 mused, then shook his head, "but such a route would be extremely hazardous, and I do not wish to see you damaged."

"Any survivors could be hurt or in danger - especially if what you say about the vents is true," Meetra said. "We need to make sure they're alright."

HK-50 was silent for a long moment as he mulled it over, to the point where Meetra wasn't sure he hadn't locked up completely. "Warning: Master, continued exploration of this facility may place you in unnecessary danger. I encourage you to return to the medical bay and wait for retrieval from a vessel that is no doubt on the way even as we continue this pointless conversation." Meetra refused to dignify that with a response and after a brief staredown, the droid relented. "Weary Resignation: Very well, Master. But there is little that I can do. You see, the airlock is sealed by a code."

Meetra groaned inwardly. "One that you don't have, I assume."

"Correction: Oh, I already possess the code, Master, but I am afraid it will do you no good." HK-50 sounded positively amused by the situation. "Condescending Explanation: The console governing the droid maintenance area - and this airlock - is voice-printed." He gestured toward the body of the red-haired man behind her. "Musing: In the last days of his life, the maintenance officer was quite careful about voice protocols, bordering on paranoid obsession."

"I can't imagine why," Meetra muttered to herself, but the protocol droid appeared not to have heard.

"Conjecture: I suspect once he realized something was wrong in the facility, he voice-locked the droid bay functions. A prudent measure, but in the end he met the same fate as the rest of the organics." He shook his head. "At the end, he was quite incoherent from the pain, and attempts to facilitate communications with him proved useless. I heard his dying screams as the droids he tended turned on him, mining him like a piece of asteroid rock. The record of his last moments were - "

HK-50 voice left off as the recording took over, the maintenance officer's panicked voice issuing from the droid's vocabulator in fits and starts. "... five droids... burning through the outer door... they're forcing their way into the bay... please, someone they... oh no, they're through! Aghhhh! My leg! They're burning through my leg! I... Stop! Stop, please!" 

The dead man's begging cut off as HK-50 switched back to his speaking voice. "Addendum: His remaining attempts at communications are variations in decibel, Master, ranging from frenzied screams to gibbering, inarticulate attempts to beg for his life."

The droid's nonchalance at being witness to a man's death turned Meetra's stomach, but the existence of the recording sparked an idea. "If you have his code and that recording... you should be able to fool the voiceprint."

HK-50 actually took a step back, managing to radiate affront despite his stilted movements. "Objection: Master! To commit such an act would be in violation of the ethics programming most droids are believed to possess. I am afraid there is nothing that can be done."

Meetra raised an eyebrow at "believed to possess," but decided not to pursue it. The droid wasn't likely to help her override the door code willingly, but that didn't mean he couldn't be tricked. He was definitely capable of speaking the code in the maintenance officer's voice; if there were a way to record him doing it... She gestured back toward the hallway and took a step away from HK-50. "I'm going to look around. That all right with you?"

"Condescending Reply: You hardly need my permission, Master."

The droid wandered away, muttering to himself. Meetra let him go and stepped back out into the hallway. HK-50 wasn't likely to attack her - he had said as much when lamenting the danger she had been aboard the  _Harbinger_ and the  _Ebon Hawk_ \- but she had no intention of finding out how he would react if he learned of Kreia and Atton's existence. When she was sure the droid was out of earshot, she tapped the commlink. "Atton? Atton, do you read me?" Her only answer was the infinite hiss of white noise. Even if he'd somehow heard her, she'd never be able to make out a response. Likely the explosion in the tunnel had overwhelmed the signal. She reached out with her thoughts, seeking Kreia's consciousness. " _Kreia?_ " No response. Hopefully, the old woman was still safe in the morgue.

With no way to contact either ally, it seemed the only way forward was to pry the code and voiceprint out of HK-50, either by trickery or by force. Meetra didn't fancy her chances with the latter, but the former was probably doable. She'd have to move quickly, though; if there were any surviving miners in the dormitories, they're time was running out. And if the droid caught on to her plan, hers would be as well.


	7. Space Walk

After half an hour of searching, Meetra found what she was looking for in a plasteel container: a small recording device and a datapad belonging to the dead maintenance officer. She scrolled through the files, discovering the device was called a sonic imprint sensor, something the maintenance officer had put together with HK-50's help and then hid in the container to prevent other miners from using it to override the voiceprint controls on the droids. Meetra replaced the datapad and palmed the sensor, returning to HK-50. The droid was still stomping around the room, clearly annoyed that his expected escape route hadn't arrived yet. He ignored Meetra as she approached, though his muttering increased. When she called his name, he looked up, hesitating for a moment before answering. "Hopeful Reply: Have you decided not to embark on a foolish suicide mission?"

Meetra ignored his snark, surreptitiously thumbing the sonic imprint sensor's activation switch. "Actually, HK-50, I wanted to apologize."

"Incredulous Surprise: Apologize for what, Master?"

"I shouldn't have assumed you would be able to mimic the maintenance officer's voice well enough to fool the voiceprint," Meetra said, hoping the droid wouldn't be able to detect false sincerity. "It was rude. Can you forgive me?"

"Slightly Offended Answer: Master! I am more than capable of such simple forgery."

"Really? That would be really impressive to hear. I mean, if you're feeling up to it."

HK-50 straightened, radiating delight in every movement. "Proud Answer: Master, I believe my vocabulator is working adequately enough to accommodate your request. Recitation - " He switched back to the maintenance officer's voice, thankfully void of the man's dying screams, "Maintenance Control: Voiceprint ID: R1-B5." He transitioned back to his usual voice. "Rhetorical Question: Was that sufficient, Master?"

"Color me impressed." Meetra switched the sensor off and subtly pocketed it. "Thank you, HK-50. I'm going to keep looking around for supplies. Come find me if a ride shows up?"

The droid nodded. "Delighted Acquiescence: Of course, Master." As he turned away, Meetra was certain she saw a spring in his step. Better to let him believe he'd won; he'd be less likely to follow her, at least right away. Meetra slipped out of the room and threaded her way through the fuel depot, the echoing of her footsteps the only accompaniment. The silence was even eerier after the conversation with HK-50, as though the droid's synthetic voice had been a barrier against the emptiness of the facility, and now that she had left him behind, the unsettling stillness crept back in. At the end of the long empty corridor, she ran into three doors. Two of them were sealed; one had the word "Airlock" stenciled above the door, while the other blocked access to the turbolift. The third led into a small workroom with tall shelves full of robotic odds and ends against one wall and a terminal against the other. Meetra crossed to the console and booted it up, selecting the maintenance logs from the command list.

A hologram of the deceased red-headed officer materialized above the console and launched into the implementation of the sonic imprint sensor among the mining droids. Meetra skipped to the next log, causing the hologram to crackle and then reconstitute, this time relating the arrival of the  _Ebon Hawk_. There was mention of a protocol droid, presumably HK-50, and an astromech, a T3 model. She wondered if the chirpy droid who had helped her earlier was one and the same, and she felt a pang of regret for not asking HK-50 about him. On the other hand, the protocol droid was more likely to lie than give her a straight answer, so there was a good chance it wouldn't have mattered either way. His lack of contact after opening the mining tunnel access still worried her; she'd have to keep an eye out for the little guy. The hologram had started to loop while she was lost in thought, so she skipped ahead to the next one and her heart clenched. HK-50 had been telling at least some of the truth: he had indeed told the miners about her past, as both a Jedi and part of Revan's rebellion. The officer spoke about the schism between the miners who plotted to sell her to the Exchange and the others who opposed it, mentioning a familiar name: Coorta. The idea that he might be alive and waiting for her in the dormitories made her stomach churn, but she knew she couldn't leave him behind if their paths crossed; no one deserved to die here, trapped in the sterile corridors at the mercy, or lack thereof, of their own droids. The last log reported the increase of accidents among the mining droids, the officer's voice thick with urgency and an undercurrent of fear. Meetra sighed and backed out of the logs. If only she'd woken up earlier, even if just a day previous. She might have been able to save more than an old woman, a shady rogue, and a snarky droid.

She shook her head and brushed her hair back from her face, as much to clear the strands from her eyes as to push away the guilt, and pulled the sonic imprint sensor from her pocket, forwarding through the recording until she reached HK-50's impression of the officer. She selected the voiceprint command of the airlock, beginning playback when the terminal prompted her to speak the password. There was a heavy thunk out in the hallway as the door to the airlock cycled open. Meetra waited, listening intently, but the sound of clanking robot feet didn’t come. HK-50 was probably still congratulating himself for “convincing” her not to travel to the dormitories. She chuckled at his imagined reaction when he discovered that she’d tricked him as she entered the inner airlock.

Several lockers lined the far wall and Meetra rifled through them, finding a space suit in the one nearest the outer airlock door. She put everything but the helmet on, hesitating, and then tapped the commlink. “Atton?” More white noise came back at her, the signal still too weak to overcome the interference. She removed the device from her ear and attached it to a port in the helmet, connecting it to the suit’s built-in radio, then pulled the helmet carefully over her head and activated the seal. All sound, had there been any, was instantly dampened, save for the faint hiss of the suit constantly recycling and resupplying oxygen. Meetra cycled the outer airlock door, the inner one automatically sealing behind her, and stepped out into the vacuum. A metal walkway extended out before her, curving around beneath the communications blister and out toward the other side of the facility. 

The suit made her movements slow and clunky, but Meetra was grateful for it. The last thing she needed was to accidentally catapult herself off into the infinite blackness. The magnets in the space suit’s boots jerked her feet back down to the walkway after every step, forcing her to move forward in a kind of shuffle rather than proper walking. Though it hindered her speed, it did give her a chance to admire the view, the star-dusted black of space enveloping the facility and reminding her just how small it, and she, was in comparison. As she approached the communications blister, the suit's radio crackled to life, a signal finally breaking through. "It's about time."

Atton's voice and the evident relief in it made Meetra smile. After the quiet of the mining tunnels and the fuel depot, as well as HK-50's shifty non-answers, it was good to hear a relatively friendly voice. "Were you worried?"

"Of course. There's a shortage of beautiful women in the galaxy; shame to lose one." Meetra rolled her eyes and continued to move along the catwalk. At least he felt safe enough to joke. "I lost your signal after you left the mining tunnels. Now you're coming in clear." He paused for a moment. "... except I'm picking you up on the exterior of the facility, on the asteroid's surface... that can't be right..."

She rounded the walkway's curve, coming to a stop in front of the blister's transparent wall. Through the glass, she could see Atton squinting at the terminal's screen, brows drawn together, as he pecked away at the keyboard. "Really? How strange."

"You're telling me."

Meetra resisted the urge to laugh. "Maybe you should look up."

He did, staring at her for a moment as if he couldn't comprehend what he was looking at, and then his eyes widened, mouth involuntarily falling open. Now, Meetra did laugh. The genuine surprise on his face was cute and endearing, the first true expression she'd seen unfiltered through his sarcastic facade. "What are you doing out there?" He sounded dazed, as if hit over the head.

 “I ran into a rather... chatty protocol droid in the fuel depot,” Meetra said, leaving out HK-50’s more unnerving qualities. “He said some of the miners might’ve taken shelter in the dormitories. With the turbolift locked down, this is the only way.”

”You’re crazy.” Her answer appeared to have snapped Atton out of his shock; now he just sounded angry. “Even for a Jedi.”

Some of Meetra’s good humor faded and her lips compressed into a thin line of irritation. “I’m not - “

”Yeah, yeah.” Atton waved away her protest. “When we have time. You need to get out of there, quick.”

“Believe me, I’m trying. You ever try moving quickly in one of these?”

”Any other day, I would love to continue this banter thing we’ve got going, but you need to listen to me.” He dropped his attention to the terminal before continuing. “What little is left of this facility’s venting systems have gone active, likely from the explosions in the mining tunnels. They’re expelling Peragus fuel deposits into space through the exterior vents... right in your path.”

 "Can you shut it down?"

"I can't - I'm still locked out of the main systems here." Atton typed furiously, but Meetra could see the defeat on his face. "The vents look like they've been purposely rerouted to vent the gasses to the exterior, and only in the last few minutes." A pit formed in Meetra's stomach; had HK-50 discovered her absence and created the obstacle to stop her? "It's almost as if - " An alarm began to sound, irritatingly loud even through the commlink. Atton winced, searching the terminal's data for the source of the warning. "Oh, what now?" He paused, eyes narrowing and then widening. "I don't believe this - there's a ship coming in, sending a docking code."

Meetra frowned. "Isn't that a good thing?"

Atton looked up, gaze travelling past her, and his face went slack. Meetra turned as quickly as the cumbersome suit would allow and her heart climbed into her throat. A large orange and tan ship glided toward the mining facility, the symbol of the Republic displayed prominently on the vertical bow. It sailed through the soundless black, weaving through the asteroids with an uncanny grace. As it swept past her, the ship's name escaped Meetra in a breathless whisper: "The  _Harbinger_."

"Looks like your Republic friends finally showed up," Atton grumbled, seeming not to have heard her. The  _Harbinger_ slowed as it came alongside the facility, coming to a halt on the far side of the asteroid. The docking clamp extended from the facility's exterior and attached to the ship, an unfortunately automatic process, the fueling line following shortly after. Once the tether was secure, an enclosed ramp extended to meet with the _Harbinger_ ’s airlock, forming an airtight seal. From this distance, Meetra couldn’t make out whether or not anyone was exiting the ship. As she squinted, heart still hammering in her chest at the sight of the vessel, another mind brushed against hers, a whisper-thin touch, and Kreia voice sounded in her head, as clear as if the old woman had been standing next to her.

 “ _He has come.”_


	8. Dorm Invasion

_"Kreia?!"_ Meetra reached for the old woman's mind, grasping wildly with her thoughts. _"Who's coming? Kreia? Kreia!"_ Silence echoed back at her. Panic clawed its way up into her chest, shortening her breath. The  _Harbinger_ hovered ahead of her, still and imposing against the black backdrop of space. There was nothing outwardly terrifying about the ship; under other circumstances, its formidable bulk would have been of little consequence, perhaps even comforting, but now she felt the same anxiety-inducing  _wrongness_ she'd felt in the aftermath of Malachor V. Her connection to the Force was still too tenuous to confirm her unease, but Kreia  _and_ HK-50 had labeled her as the only other survivor from the  _Harbinger_. As fond of half-truths as they were, there was little chance both of them were lying. And if that were the case, it meant that someone, or something, else had control of the Republic ship... and out of all possible points in the galaxy, had ended up exactly where she was. Calling it a coincidence would be more than generous; it would be more akin to suicidal.

"Meetra!" Atton's voice pulled her back to reality. From the volume, it seemed it wasn't the first time he'd called her name. She turned back to the communications blister, glad he couldn't see her fear through the space suit's tinted faceplate. He was watching her intently, concern flickering briefly across his features before the self-assured mask slid back into place. "You need to get back inside. Depot or dormitories, I don't care. You're not gonna save anyone if you run out of air." He paused and chuckled grimly. "Or if whoever docked that tub isn't looking to leave witnesses. Get moving, Jedi."

The jibe, more than anything, broke through her paralysis, and she let out a strangled laugh. "You're testing my patience on purpose, Rand."

He flashed a tense grin. "If it gets you to listen, I'll do it every chance I get." He turned his attention back to the terminal, calling up more information. "Looks like there's a turbolift that leads back to the administration level on that side of the facility, too. If you can unlock it, you can get back up here to me." He glanced back out at her. "Fair warning: I'll probably lose you once you get through the airlock. That explosion is still throwing up a lot of interference. So, I guess I'll just say 'good luck' now."

Meetra nodded, raising a hand in response. "Be careful, Atton." He mimicked the gesture and she turned away, shuffling forward toward the dormitory airlock. The  _Harbinger_ still loomed large ahead of her, but Atton's prodding had given her the resolve to push the fear to the back of her mind. Finding survivors had to be her first priority. If her search was fruitless, if there was no one but Atton and Kreia to save, then getting off the station was the next course of action. Neither plan had to involve the ominous vessel. At least, she hoped they didn't. 

Halfway between the communications blister and the airlock, she ran into the vents Atton had warned her about. There were two, side by side, both spewing a violet gas at steady intervals. Perhaps a safety function, in the unlikely, under normal circumstances at least, event that anyone was trapped outside the facility if an emergency required the fuel to be vented. Meetra waited, timing her reaction. She wouldn't be able to cover the entire distance before the far vent expelled another burst of gas, but there was a small gap between the two that would hopefully provide some safety. As the first vent went quiet, she shuffled past it, reaching the thin safe zone before gas burst out on either side of her, so close at this distance that she could feel the heat through the space suit. She flinched, but held her ground, moving past the second vent as soon as its expulsion slowed.

 Reaching the airlock, she cycled the door and stepped in, stumbling a bit as her balance reoriented to accommodate for the lack of magnetic pull from the suit's boots. She staggered forward to the inner airlock and hit the release. Behind her, the outer door slid shut and her ears popped as the pressure in the room equalized rapidly. The inner door opened and Meetra stepped forward into another long chrome and ceramic hallway. She fumbled with the seal on her helmet and it released with a rush of recycled air, and she pulled it off, popped the commlink back out, and set the helmet on the floor. Silence, sharp and biting, rushed in to fill the void, no longer held at bay by the helmet's dampening effect. She stripped out of the suit and folded it up into a small square, boots hanging off either side, and then hooked both the suit and the helmet to one of the harness' loops. Clunky if she got into a fight, but the suit could always serve a purpose later on. She unhooked the vibrosword, gripping it tightly, and made her way down the corridor.

Further in, she could faintly hear the clatter of droid appendages, but she found it hard to feel any concern. After dealing with HK-50 and seeing the  _Harbinger_ , the slow, almost bumbling mining droids seemed trivial. When she stumbled upon one, she barely paused, skirting around it as it continued skittering about without a purpose. Eventually, Meetra came upon the first corpse since the fuel depot: another female miner, her body scorched and pockmarked. A datapad lay near her outstretched hand. Meetra scooped it up and scrolled through the message, learning that the droids were not the only malfunction in the dormitories: the fire suppression system, fueled, in all the wisdom of an insane engineer, by carbonite, had activated, killing at least one of the miners and leaving the author of the datapad trapped in the corridor with the droids. She also revealed that the nearby storage room contained ion grenades, which she had been unable to retrieve due to the lockdown. Meeta replaced the pad and murmured a short apology over the woman's body before turning to the storage room. She fished another sonic mine from the pocket of her harness, attached it to the door, armed it, and retreated down the hall.

The door blew open with a sharp crack, drawing the attention of the droid Meetra had passed earlier. It clicked back down the hall, pausing briefly when it reached her, and then continued on to the door. It turned from left to right, confused, and then returned the way it came. She waited for it to pass and then slipped into the room, rifling through the lockers and plasteel canisters, turning up a few droid repair kits and a handful of ion grenades. She pocketed all of it and went back out into the hallway.

She heard the fire suppression turrets before she spotted them, the whirring of their servos as they turned from side to side cutting through the silence. They snapped toward her as she turned the corner and fired, but their blasts didn't carry past the threshold of the room they were placed in. Meetra reached for one of the mining blasters, calculating the distance between the edge of the room and the nearest droid, but she released the weapon after a moment. The Jedi had viewed most weapons besides lightsabers as beneath them, none more so than blasters, and, like most Jedi, she'd never had training in using one. Even the feel of the weapon in her palm was off, as if either it or her hand was the wrong shape. Instead, she fished a couple of ion grenades out of her harness, thumbed the safeties, and lobbed one at each turret. Her coordination was true and both grenades skidded to a stop against the casing of the turrets. Meetra ducked back around the corner, turning her face away as the grenades exploded. She waited a moment and then peeked back in. Scorch marks pocked two corners of the room and pieces of metal were scattered all across the floor; all that remained of either turret. She crossed the room and continued down the corridor, eventually arriving at a three-way intersection with a terminal against one wall.

Meetra switched the console on and selected the camera feeds from the main commands. She brought up the mess hall first, wincing when it presented her with a grisly tableau of dead miners and demolished droids. The views of the dormitories were no better. Poisonous fumes were still being pumped into both room, but she could make out the shapes of bodies beneath the deadly clouds. Her heart sank and she leaned heavily against the console, tears of frustration threatening to spill over. She couldn't shake the sense of responsibility she felt, a holdover from her lessons so many years ago. She'd always been told people depended on her for safety and security, and even though she knew now that it wasn't true, it was still a hard thing to fight. Meetra took a deep breath, centering herself as much as possible, and began to flick through screens, eventually stumbling upon the ventilation controls. Though locked, the password wasn't hard to crack, even with her mediocre skill, and she cut off the vents in both dorms. With the danger taken care off, she canceled the lockdown and the dormitory door cycled open behind her. 

She entered the east dorm first, skirting gingerly around the bodies. Many were curled in on themselves, hands near their throats, and those who had fallen face-up stared sightlessly, a permanent grimace of pain and fear imprinted on their features. Meetra averted her eyes, swallowing hard against the bile rising in her throat. The facility's saboteur had a lot to answer for. Finding no clues, she exited and crossed the hallway to the western dorm. The scene was almost a mirror image of the other dormitory, the only difference being the bodies themselves. A man wearing a more formal version of the now-familiar miner's uniform lay near the dorm's terminal, his arm outstretched toward it with a small object clasped in his hand. Meetra knelt next to him and gently pried his fingers open, revealing a small data drive. She stood, plugged it into the console, and opened its storage to find two holologs, the file names identifying the drive's owner as the facility's administrator. Ignoring the sense of foreboding that weighed heavy on her, she selected the first one.

A hologram of the dead man at her feet fizzled into life, the fear and fatigue evident even through the grainy footage. " _This may be the beginning of a long record - it's about an hour after the facility suffered the explosion that triggered the emergency lockdown. Just finished helping the dock officer set up the transmission relay. Not much signal strength, but it's better than_ nothing." Meetra took note of the revelation. It likely explained how the  _Harbinger_ had found its way to the facility, assuming it hadn't followed the  _Ebon Hawk_. " _The transmission gives the code to open the turbolift when..."_ He trailed off and locked down, biting the inside of his cheek before continuing, " _... or if, help arrives. The code is a simple group of five numbers - three, seventeen, thirteen, then the next two numbers are -_ "

A woman's image appeared alongside his, arms wrapped close around herself. The same anxiety in the officer's face was reflected on hers. " _Sir_ _, couldn't we contact the medbay? Maybe the Jedi is awake._ " There was a hopefulness is her voice that pricked at Meetra's heart. These people had needed her. " _If so, she could help us._ "

The man shook his head, despair and acceptance mingling in the movement. " _No good - the link to the medical computer was severed from the hub, just like the administration console. Even if the Jedi wakes up, how would we get the dormitory turbolift code to her? Without it, the turbolift to the administration level is locked down._ " The log dissolved into static as it ended. Meetra committed the numbers the administrator had listed to memory. Returning to the console's main commands, she saw that there was a record of the transmission saved in its memory. She scanned it, running the possible combinations in her head. It was a military flash code, not unlike ones she had used during the Mandalorian Wars. After a few more minutes of contemplation, she was confident she had the remaining digits: 5 and 7.

She queued up the remaining log, the administrator's holo clone rematerializing in front of the terminal. " _We just took inventory of our supplies. We've got enough emergency rations in the dormitories to last almost a month, but with all the problems in the facility, I don't know how long we'll last. I wish we could contact the Jedi, maybe she could..._ " He balled his fists, clenching them tightly. " _But no, she's still floating in that damn tank. Someone's played us for fools, and since Coorta -_ " He spit out the name, as if just saying it was distasteful " _\- and his crew aren't locked in here with us, I'd say it's pretty clear who it was. If I ever catch up with that Mandalorian-loving son of a_ -" He cut himself off with a heavy sigh. " _At least the air scrubbers are still working, even through they're tied into the -_ " Again, the administrator cut off, this time with panic in his eyes as a grainy, pixelated holographic representation of the poisonous fumes began to rise around him. " _Hey, what's happening to the ventilation system?! It's -_ " His words dissolved into a horrible cacophony of gurgling coughs as he clutched at his throat, his eyes bulging. Unable to look away, Meetra witnessed his last moments as his sputtering slowed and he sank down to the floor.

Meetra stumbled out of the dorm, struggling against to keep the meager contents of her stomach where they belonged. She allowed herself a moment to gather her composure and then headed down the last corridor at the intersection, arriving at the mess hall. She picked her way through the bodies, human and droid alike, exiting the opposite side and following the curving path around to the turbolift. She came to an abrupt halt as she entered and saw three bodies scattered around the lift's door and terminal; more miners separated from the groups in the dorms by the hostile droids? Two of the men were covered in blaster wounds and scorch marks, identical to most of the bodies she'd encountered, but the third looked like his chest had been caved in. She examined each body, all male humans and all clothed in mining uniforms, finding a data drive like the administrator's on the corpse furthest from the turbolift. She crossed to the terminal and inserted it, pausing when the file names identified the drive's owner: Coorta, the miner whom the others had suspected of sabotaging the facility and the orchestrator of the plan to sell her to the Exchange. On the drive, she found saved footage from the turbolift's cameras, time-stamped somewhere between the dormitory lockdown and the miners' deaths. She queued it up, both curious and loathe to see what had been Coorta's end.

The man himself, or at least his hologram, materialized before her. " _\- almost didn't make it out of the dormitory section before the lockedown, you murglak! You're cutting it a little close, aren't you?_ "

A new voice spoke, belonging to someone other than Coorta's associates; someone speaking over the intercom, then. " _Yes, a regrettable miscalculation on my part. I'm contacting you because I'm picking up a subspace transmission from within that level - is that your doing?_ "

The miner frowned, fingers fidgeting on the mining blaster at his waist. " _No, they... they must be trying to use the old relay system to send an emergency signal. I doubt they know what's really going on._ "

" _Hey!_ " Coorta turned as one of his partners, a younger man with short light-colored hair, interacted with the turbolift's console. " _This turbolift's locked down._ "

" _Try the code again._ " Coorta's voice was tense and he was gripping the blaster now. He looked back to the ceiling, addressing the disembodied co-conspirator. " _Don't worry about the miners and their transmissions. By the time help arrives, we'll be all the way to Nar Shaddaa._ "

The unseen voice chuckled. " _Oh, they won't be leaving the dormitories. The explosion within the tunnel has damaged the ventilation systems, causing breaches in the core exhaust conduits._ "

If the hololog had been in color, Meetra was sure she would have seen the blood drain from Coorta's face. " _What?! That'll kill them all._ "

" _Not all, unfortunately. But I'm sending a number of mining droids to your location right now to correct that problem._ "

Coorta's associate turned away from the console, panic in both his face and voice. " _Coorta, the lift's still locked down - the sequence isn't working!_ "

" _Keep trying it!_ " Coorta glared upwards, even the hologram radiating the desperate fury of someone who knew he was doomed. " _You... why are you doing this? Why me?!_ "

" _You?_ " The voice was amused, as if the miner had told a mildly funny joke. " _It was never about you. The Jedi is all that interests me. But then you had to ruin everything by revealing her identity, and then trying to harm her. And that I cannot allow._ " The speaker paused, savoring the satisfaction of pulling one over on Coorta. " _Statement: You are a risk, Coorta. You are impulsive, crude... and soon, deceased._ "

The air left Meetra's lungs in a sharp huff. Only one droid in the facility prefaced his speech to facilitate understanding like that. Her chest tightened, a cold mass forming in her stomach. As the footage continued, three large mining droids entered the room, opening fire on the miners without hesitation. The men screamed and the one closest to the door, the one who hadn't spoken, attempted to flee, but the nearest droid threw out an arm, slamming the hapless miner into the wall and crushing his chest. Coorta and the light-haired young man went silent, their bodies riddled with blaster fire. Over the intercom, HK-50 sounded as if he were barely able to contain his glee as the droids returned the way they'd come. " _Mocking Query: Coorta? Coorta, are you dead yet? Smug Statement: I believe I forgot to mention that I reversed the turbolift codes in case you managed to get this far._ " The log ended, the holograms vanishing over their flesh and blood counterparts.

Meetra's breath was hard and shallow, her heartbeat a roar in her ears. If HK-50 had access to the facility's camera network... did he know where she was now? Had he been tracking her since he realized she'd left the fuel depot? A more frightening thought occurred: did he know about Atton and Kreia? Fear of the possible answer to that question galvanized her into action. She selected the command to unlock the turbolift from the terminal's console and entered the code, careful to reverse it as per HK-50's revelation. She fled into the lift and set it to return to the administration level, afraid she would hear the clank of metal on metal before the doors slid shut.


	9. I, Assassin-Bot

Meetra bolted through the turbolift door the second it was wide enough, nearly plowing headlong into Kreia standing on the other side. The old woman narrowly sidestepped the tip of the Meetra's vibrosword with a withering look. Meetra half-shrugged and lowered the weapon toward the floor, still preoccupied with HK-50's possible retaliation. "Are you alright? Why did you leave the morgue?"

"To meet you." Kreia's tone suggested she'd find a particularly dense bantha more intelligent than Meetra's questions. She lifted a hand to stall the younger woman's reply. "We are out of time. I have felt a disturbance..." For the first time, something akin to fear flitted across the old woman's face, and it sent a new chill down Meetra's spine. "Our enemy is here, and we must leave at once."

"The person who fired on the  _Ebon Hawk_?"

Kreia nodded. "The very same, and he will not let us go without blood being shed."

"Well, what's one more person trying to kill us?" Meetra chuckled grimly, shaking her head when Kreia raised an eyebrow. "I'll explain later. Let's go. We'll collect Atton and move from there."

"'Atton?'" In the old woman's mouth, his name sounded slimy and unpleasant, and Meetra frowned. As if sensing her disapproval, Kreia changed subjects fluidly. "In any case, we need to make our way to the docking area on this level. I fear the airlock has already opened, and we must be on our guard."

"I couldn't see anyone from the catwalk outside the station," Meetra admitted, leaving the implication hanging. Kreia regarded her silently. "Right. Let's get moving." Meetra took the lead, heading back toward the communications blister, and Kreia fell in behind her. Save for their footsteps, the sterile hallways were as quiet as when she had passed through previously, but now the silence held an oppressive quality to it, a sinister air that put Meetra on edge. They passed through the security office and Kreia picked up Meetra's abandoned vibrocutter from the desk, holding it a loose, but firm grip. Meetra noted the old woman's familiarity with the weapon, but didn't comment on it. At least she would be able to defend herself if necessary.

They entered administration and Meetra heard Atton before she saw him, hurling curses under his breath at the terminal. He turned at the sound of her footsteps, half-smile sliding into place at the sight of her, but his face fell when he noticed Kreia, confusion replacing relief. "What the hell is going on?" He gestured at the old woman. "Who's she? Another Jedi? What, did you guys start breeding when I wasn't looking?"

"Not a Jedi; I'll explain later." Meetra leaned her vibroblade against the console, unhooked the mining blasters from her harness, and pushed them into his hands. "Here. We need to get moving."

Atton stared blankly at her, but took the blasters, checking the charge and safety mechanically. "Uh... all right. I'm guessing that Republic ship isn't carrying friends of yours." Meetra flinched inwardly. No, if Kreia and HK-50 were correct, the  _Harbinger_ wasn't carrying friends of hers. Not anymore.

"I hope your talent for understatement is offset by your skill with a blaster." The derision in Kreia's voice was almost as potent as kinrath toxin. "If not, then I fear our time together will be short indeed."

"Yeah, and I'm also good at running and drinking, your majesty," Atton snapped, glaring at the old woman. She stared back, gaze milky and sightless, mouth curved up into a small irritating smile. He rolled his eyes and turned back to Meetra. "So what's the plan? With the hanger still locked down, our options are kinda limited."

"If we cannot reach the  _Ebon Hawk_ , then we must find a way to escape on the ship that has docked here," Kreia cut in.

"The  _Harbinger_?" Meetra rounded on the old woman, eyes wide. "Is that wise? Whoever brought it here probably isn't eager to help us leave."

"If we can't get to the hanger, that warship's the only way off this station," Atton said, sounding reluctant to agree with Kreia. "Even if you two aren't big friends of the Republic."

The Republic was the least of their problems, but Meetra held her tongue. Part of her was loath to alarm Atton further, and another smaller part held out faint hope for other survivors aboard the  _Harbinger_ , regardless of Kreia and HK-50's statement to the contrary. She nodded and retrieved her vibrosword. "Let's get moving, then. Kreia thinks we have a way onto the ship through the airlock." 

Atton took the lead, moving toward a hallway branching off to the left of the communications blister and gesturing for both women to follow. "Perfect. We have a straight shot to the shi - "

"Threat: Master, perhaps I did not enunciate clearly the last time we spoke."

Meetra whipped around, vibrosword snapping up in front of her. She reached for the Force, its faint melody rising around her in response. HK-50 stood at the far end of the room, a large blaster rifle clutched in his metallic hands, his lenses glowing with an unnerving red light. Four spherical machines orbited around him; Meetra recognized them as robotic mines from their use during the battle of Dxun. Now that he had her attention, HK-50 relaxed his aim, but didn't let the rifle lower completely. "I suggested you shut down, stay put, and wait for rescue."

"No, you were clear," Meetra said, shifting slightly to put herself between HK-50 and her companions. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Atton moving with her, allowing her to remain between them while giving himself a clear line of fire. "I just don't take orders from assassin droids."

"Clarification: 'Assassin droid' is such a crude term, Master, reserved for durasteel drones uploaded with only the most archaic kill-programs."

"Sorry, did I hurt your feelings?"

"This the 'protocol' droid you mentioned?" Atton asked, mining blasters trained on HK-50's silver frame. On Meetra's other side, Kreia stood silent and unmoving, but tension radiated from beneath her drab robe.

HK-50's head swiveled minutely to focus on Atton before returning to Meetra, the tip of his blaster rifle straightening. "Continued Recitation: The function I perform has been referred to as 'wanton slaughter,' I prefer to see it as a means of facilitating communications, resulting in a termination of hostilities."

Meetra shrugged, the tip of her vibrosword bobbing with the movement. "Whatever you say. 'Murder' still means 'murder' to me."

The droid tipped his head to the side, a small gesture of annoyance. "Correction: I am not here to argue semantics, Master, so I will simply inform you that you are wrong - as were those recently-corrected miners."

"And the miners in the med-bay? The ones in the kolto tanks you poisoned?" Meetra's voice took on a hard edge. "How did they figure into your 'termination of hostilities' when they couldn't fight back?"

"Indignant Answer: Master, the miners intended to place you in jeopardy. I could not allow that to take place." He waved a hand dismissively. "After reprogramming the mining droids to 'mine' any organics they perceived, they began to kill the miners one by one. Then a series of flawlessly-timed explosions  - "

Meetra seized on the information. "Like the ones that crippled the  _Harbinger_?"

HK-50 paused for a long moment, and Meetra took small pleasure in knowing she was frustrating the machine. "... Continued Recitation: A series of flawlessly-timed explosions drove the miners into their dormitories - where I was able to gas them all at once without wasting time hunting them through the mining tunnels."

"Well, couldn't have them inconveniencing you."

"Exasperated Warning: Master, this childish attitude does not facilitate a favorable impression."

"I don't know," Atton interjected with a shrug, "I find it pretty endearing, to be honest."

HK-50 ignored him. "Resumed Recitation: I then administered a large dose of sedative to the remaining miners in the med bay, enough to kill them but ensure you slept peacefully."

 "So what was the end goal here?" Atton seemed determined the keep the droid's attention on him. "If you had to stop the miners from selling her to the Exchange, who's in charge?"

"Answer: It is beyond the scope of my programming to probe the motivations of my clients." HK-50 pivoted away from Atton dismissively and refocused on Meetra. "In any case, my programming renders me incapable of revealing the identity of my client. I am free to say that my benefactor is both wealthy and very interested in possessing the last of the Jedi. Suffice to say that I am being well compensated for my services. You have been a difficult target to find, Master."

One side of Meetra's mouth curved up in a grim smirk. "It's a shame you'll have to go back empty-handed. There are no Jedi here."

HK-50 took a step forward, the clank of his foot against the floor as direct as any spoken threat. "Irritated Response: My patience is running thin, Master. I have verified your identity at multiple intervals since I began tracking you. You have been wandering the galaxy since the end of the Mandalorian Wars, leaving little record of your passage. It as if you did not wish to be found, by hunters such as myself, or more likely... the Jedi Order."

Meetra sensed more than saw Atton glance sharply at her at the droid's words, but she ignored it. That conversation was better saved for when they got out of the facility. She narrowed her eyes at HK-50 and shifted her weight to her back foot, squaring her shoulders and slowly settling into a more combat-ready stance. "Obviously, I didn't do a good enough job if you found me."

"Soothing Response: As I said, you were quite difficult to find, even with my considerable ability." The droid shifted, his blaster rifle gravitating between the three of them. "Authoritative Command: Now, Master, we will wait here for rescue, after which I will deliver you to my client." The barrel of the gun flicked from Atton to Kreia. "Decisive Statement: We will wait alone."

Meetra took a step forward, forcing the HK-50 to redirect the blaster toward her. "I don't want to fight you, but I won't let you hurt anyone else. We -" She gestured to her left and right with her vibrosword "- are leaving, without you."

HK-50 shook his head. "Resignation: Very well, Master. If inflicting pain is the only means to resolve this matter, then you leave me no choice." He made a sweeping gesture with one arm and the floating mines around him lurched forward, speed building rapidly as they advanced toward the three. Meetra dropped into a crouch, giving Atton a clear line of fire, and threw a hand out, drawing on the Force. It sang in her thoughts, soft and faint, but constant, and two of the mines sailed backward. Unfortunately, her aim had never been the best to begin with, made worse with time, and the mines went wide of HK-50, exploding against the wall to his right.

Atton made short work of the other mines, blasting both out of the air with well-placed shots, while Kreia advanced on HK-50. He fired a volley of bolts at her, forcing her to duck into one of the branching hallways for cover. Atton clipped the droid with another shot, drawing his attention, and Meetra took advantage of the distraction, launching herself forward, vibroblade thrust out in front of her. HK-50 attempted to pivot back toward her, firing wildly, but too late. She ducked beneath his guard and plunged the weapon into his mid-section. HK-50 shrieked, a garbled electronic screech, and shoved her away. Meetra hit the floor hard, breath rushing out of her.

The droid towered over her, vibrosword wavering where it was stuck in his chassis, and leveled the blaster rifle at her as she gasped and struggled to pull herself to her feet. She heard Atton shouting, his words drowned out by the bolts he fired on HK-50, and then a flare of blue light arced over her, striking the droid dead center. He stiffened and then seized, blue energy arcing along his frame, sparks fountaining out of each seam and segment they passed over. A high keening seeped from his vocabulator and the blaster rifle fell from his grip, clattering to the floor.

Finally able to draw breath again, Meetra scrabbled away from the malfunctioning droid. Atton appeared at her side and seized her arm, hauling her to her feet and pulling her further away from HK-50. A sharp stinging pain shot up her arm from where he gripped it, causing her to gasp, but she compartmentalized the pain, shoving it back as she let him push her behind him. HK-50 began to recover, his servos unlocking, and he struggled to reach for the blaster. To his left, Kreia leaned out from her hallway, hand outstretched, and another bolt of blue lightning arced from her fingers, striking the helpless droid. He seized again, body shaking uncontrollably, the thin shrieking forming barely coherent words. "Warning: Systems failing, Master!" A flurry of sparks exploded from behind his faceplate and he went still, frozen in place for a long moment, and then he toppled to the floor, the red light behind his optics fading out.

For a long moment, no one moved, all eyes fixed on the lifeless droid. Kreia broke the spell first, lowering her vibrocutter and emerging from her hiding spot. Atton jerked toward her, mining blasters raised, earning himself a disgusted look. "Put those away before you hurt yourself." He glared at her, but stayed silent and didn't lower the blasters. Kreia turned her sightless gaze to Meetra instead. "Our time was short before; any more we waste puts us further in danger. Rein your fool in and let us go."

Atton's eyes narrowed and his grip on the blasters tightened. Behind him, Meetra regarded Kreia warily. Touching another's consciousness was one thing; she'd encountered other species who could do it without the Force, but there was no question how Kreia had called forth that lightning. "Where did you - "

"This is not the time, nor the place for such a conversation." Kreia's mouth turned down, her displeasure evident. "If we are caught, there will be neither."

Meetra bit her lip, considering the old woman's words. It was true that whoever docked the  _Harbinger_ was likely closing in on them, but Kreia had become something dangerously unknown and she had Atton's safety to consider as well as her own. By the same token, Kreia's strength was clearly greater than hers at present, and perhaps the devil she knew was the best way to ensure that safety. She touched Atton's shoulder, wincing when the movement pulled at the wound on her arm. He saw the flinch and reluctantly lowered his blasters, turning his back on Kreia to face Meetra. "What's wrong?"

"I think it's just a graze." Meetra twisted her arm, revealing a tear in the sleeve of her miner's uniform. A short straight burn marred the skin beneath, a wet, almost waxy look to the wound. Painful, but not life-threatening, and certainly not the worst injury she'd had. The long scar from knee to ankle on her left leg, courtesy of a Mandalorian's vibrosword, still took that prize. Infection was a worry, but it could wait until they reached safety. She looked back up at Atton, who watched her with a mixture of concern and uncertainty. "I'll be fine... but she's right." She held up a placating hand as his eyes hardened. "Getting off this asteroid is what's most important right now, no matter how we do it."

He gave her a long look, and then exhaled heavily and nodded, earning a grateful smile. Kreia made a tutting noise and swept past them toward the hallway to the airlock. "At least one of you has sense. See to your wound. Then we must be off."

Meetra nodded and fished one of the medkit from a harness pocket. She flipped off the cap covering the needle, took a deep breath, and plunged it through the fabric of the miner's uniform and into her leg, gritting her teeth against the sting as she depressed the release. She pulled the needle out and tossed the cartridge aside, the little vial's contents already dulling the pain in her arm. Turning to her ruined sleeve, she tugged at the edges of the tear, eventually ripping a long strip free and shaking the leftover material off her arm. While she tied the makeshift bandage around her arm, Atton crossed to HK-50's remains. He gripped the vibrosword and braced a boot against the droid's chassis, pulling the weapon free with little struggle. He set it to the side and knelt next to the lifeless frame, digging through the droid's parts.

She joined him, picking her vibroblade up from where he'd laid it. "What're you doing?"

"Seems a waste leave behind anything we could use," he explained, separating HK-50's head from his chassis with a sharp snap. Meetra winced, the action ghoulish whether the deceased was human or not. "Her Royal Highness did a number on him, though. Might not be much to salvage." His fingers deftly rooted through the droid's core, pulling free a small oblong chip. He turned it over in his hands, inspecting it carefully, and then he held it out to her. "Vocabulator looks intact, surprisingly. Could get a good price for it, in the right markets."

His practicality was surprising, and Meetra chuckled as she took the chip, slipping it into another harness pocket. Atton stood, glancing over Meetra's shoulder at Kreia, who still waited at the hallway entrance. Meetra followed his gaze, the momentary humor slipping away. "We should go. Before she decides to turn on us."

He looked back down at her. "You think she won't?"

The question was a valid one. She didn't know what Kreia was or what she was capable of, and trusting the old woman was a frightening proposition. Then again, what did she really know about Atton? Meetra glanced up at him, her gaze meeting his. Warm eyes and boyishly handsome features; a face that could hide a lot of secrets... but then again, so was hers. What did he know about her? How would he react if he found out who she was, what she'd done?

Atton tipped his head to the side, hair drifting over an eye, and raised an eyebrow in a silent question. Meetra shook her head, glancing back over her shoulder at Kreia again. "I think we don't have a lot of options."

"For once, I agree," he said, sounding anything but thrilled. He gestured for her to lead and the two followed Kreia into the hallway, heading for the  _Harbinger_ 's airlock.


	10. A Silent Harbinger

The unease weighing heavily in Meetra's stomach didn't fade as the silence that pervaded the mining facility followed the group aboard the  _Harbinger_. The unnatural stillness was laced with the idling ship's almost inaudible hum, but it only served to enhance the disquiet; a similar feeling to walking into an abandoned home and finding all the lights on. Seeing the warship so devoid of life was eerie, made even more so than the mining facility because Meetra had experienced the vessel fully-staffed. Previously, she hadn't been able to take two steps without someone dodging out of her way, either because they had their own suspicions regarding her identity or she simply moved too slowly for their liking. Even Jazala and Dekar, her constant escort, had acted like she was purposely trying to be in the way and underfoot.

Atton kept pace at Meetra's shoulder, every step punctuated with a thousand tiny movements: a short sharp turn of the head as he scanned the corridor, dark eyes flicking back and forth; hands tightening on the grip of the mining blasters, the pad of his right index finger tapping restlessly against the trigger guard; a muscle twitching along his jaw, giving away how tightly he clenched it. He caught her looking at him and raised an eyebrow. Meetra shook her head and offered a weak smile. He returned it, shoulders relaxing a fraction, and she felt her own small measure of relief. Atton's anxiety was as infectious as his confidence, and she was already high-strung from the  _Harbinger_ 's appearance and the fight with HK-50.

Ahead of them, Kreia slowed, coming to a stop when the corridor split into a three-way intersection. When Meetra and Atton caught up to her, she turned her sightless gaze on the former, a small crease between her eyebrows the only indication of her concern. "Something is wrong... I sense no one on board."

Meetra flinched inwardly at the proclamation, the little hope she had of finding any survivors shattering sharply in her chest, but she pushed it down again, locking it away for a more appropriate time. Next to her, Atton crossed his arms and snorted. "You 'sense no one on board?' Sense anymore assassin droids creeping up behind us?"

Kreia ignored him, continuing to speak to Meetra. "Everyone here has been slain."

Meetra forced herself to speak, forcing the words out of her throat like they were edged with sharp glass. "Everyone? You're sure?"

A long unblinking silence was her only answer before the old woman continued. "Strangely, there are few signs of battle." She indicated the hallway with a wave of her hand. "No carbon scoring, no blaster fire. This place has been hit by assassins of a different sort."

"Then what the hell are we doing on this ship?" Fear and anger crackled beneath the surface of Atton's snark. "We were better off in the facility!" He shook his head, rubbing at his temple with the heel of a palm. "You two are supposed to be Jedi? You're the worst Jedi I've ever met." Meetra opened her mouth, the automatic correction already on her tongue before she had even fully processed his words, but Atton cut her off with a sharp gesture. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Spare me the semantics this time, okay?"

Annoyance felt more productive than anxiety or grief, so Meetra let herself focus on it, using the frustration to keep the more debilitating emotions at bay. "Oh, I'm sorry; here I was thinking you wanted off this rock. Maybe you'd like it back in your cell?"

"Maybe I would! At least I'd be safe there!"

"Yes, a perfectly safe death by starvation."

"Enough." Kreia's tone was even, but the sharp edge put an end to the exchange. Meetra deferred to the old woman with a slight bob of the head, while Atton appeared content to glare in silence. "We cannot go back into the facility, and presumably the assassin machine has prevented us from reaching the hanger..." She trailed off, the crease on her forehead deepening.

"Don't expect me to fly this thing," Atton said quickly. "Even if I could, do you know what kind of welcome we'd get if we docked with an abandoned Republic warship?"

Kreia lifted a hand in his direction. "Be silent. I need some time to think."

He scowled at her, then turned and crossed to the far wall, leaning back against it, arms folded over his chest. "Great, let us know what you come up with. We'll just be waiting over here for the next thing that wants us dead."

"The fuel line." Atton and Kreia both turned to look at Meetra, confusion mirrored on their faces. "When the ship docked, I saw a fuel pipe extend from the facility. I assume it's an automatic process, which means it might still be attached."

Atton raised an eyebrow. "What's your point?"

"We may be able to use the fuel line to get around HK-50's contingencies. If we follow it back to the facility, there's a chance we could get into the hanger." Both of them were openly staring at her now, Atton with his mouth open in disbelief. "C'mon, it could work. As long as the ship is no longer refueling and no one follows us, where's the danger?"

"I'd say you've lost your mind, but then I'd be repeating myself," Atton said, a strained chuckle following the words.

Meetra managed a small smile. "That's why it'll work. There's no way HK-50 could have planned for this."

He shook his head and leaned away from the wall, rejoining the two women in the center of the corridor. "Look, I don't mean to cast a shadow on this, but even that did work, it wouldn't matter. Remember the drift charts? No ship in the hanger is going to have the updated ones, so unless you want to have the shortest flight out of Peragus ever recorded, we're still stuck."

"But the  _Harbinger_ does," Meetra pointed out. "Otherwise, it couldn't have docked." She looked back and forth between her companions. Kreia seemed pleased, a tiny half-smile at the corner of her mouth, while Atton, though clearly reluctant, nodded in acknowledgement. "Let's focus on the problem we can solve. Without the drift charts, getting to the hanger means nothing."

Atton switched both blasters over to one hand long enough to run a hand through his hair. "Well, we'd have to get to the bridge. I mean..." He shook his head. "Well, that's the biggest problem I can see. That we can solve, anyway."

Kreia nodded, the motion conveying a sense of finality to the matter. "That is a sound plan - for the moment. Let us go." She gestured for Meetra to lead, a hint of impatience in the movement. "Our enemies gather while we wait here."

Meetra took a deep breath and nodded. "To the bridge, then."

"All right... but this won't end well. Trust me," Atton warned, but he fell in behind Meetra as she moved out into the main corridor. The ship's nooks and pathways were still fresh in her mind, despite the gaps between her days on the  _Harbinger_ and arriving at Peragus - the bridge was only a short distance forward from the airlock. She scanned the hallway as they walked, searching for any clue to the ship's current state. The corridor was pristine, as devoid of leads as it was of life. As they approached the door to the bridge, a sense of dread crept up her spine and into her chest, and she hesitated before cycling the door. Some part of her warned that as long as the door stayed shut, she could turn around and return to the facility, leaving the mystery of the  _Harbinger_ 's crew unsolved; she wasn't sure if it was her newly nascent connection to the Force, or just her own fear. "Meetra?" Atton's voice shook her out of her contemplation and galvanized her to action. She reached for the door's sensor, staggering backward into the rogue as it slid open to display a tableau of corpses from the threshold to the navigation console.

Atton caught her before she sent them both sprawling, the breath leaving him in a rush as he got his own look at the carnage. Black and orange-clad bodies covered the bridge's floor, each covered in numerous burns and slashing wounds. There was a manufactured feel to the way they were strewn about, as if they had been killed elsewhere and dumped here to preserve the ship's spotless facade. Even Kreia seemed shaken, taking a quick step back from the doorway. Atton was the first to break the silence, his voice a strangled whisper. "What the hell did this?"

"I suggest we do not remain long enough to find out," Kreia said, clearly having recovered her composure. She gave Meetra a pointed look before striding through the door, gingerly stepping around the carpet of bodies. Atton gently pushed Meetra back to her feet, grousing about the old woman's attitude under his breath, and followed Kreia onto the bridge. Meetra hesitated a moment longer, gathering herself. She'd seen death on a large scale before, even caused it during the Mandalorian Wars, but this... this was monstrous in its execution. None of these people had fought back, which meant they had either been incapacitated prior to their deaths or unaware of their assailants before the attack. Meetra took another breath and trailed after her companions, keeping her eyes averted so as not to catch a glimpse of dark curls or golden skin.

Atton was already at the navigation console, pulling the drift charts up and downloading them onto a small drive produced from a jacket pocket. Kreia stood near him, hands folded in the sleeves of her robe and head bowed so that her hood fell down over her eyes. She didn't look up as Meetra approached, and the latter chose not to disturb her, turning instead to an adjacent terminal. She called up the menu and selected the  _Harbinger_ 's holo-logs. When Captain Donshe's visage materialized in front of her, her chest tightened, but she quickly pushed it aside as he began to speak.  _"... We have taken on passengers to Telos - "_

He was interrupted by a female officer, her panic clear even through the wavy footage.  _"Sir, we've just received an emergency broadcast - a freighter, under attack by Sith forces."_

Donshe frowned, his already lined face becoming more creased.  _"Can you get an ID on the ship?"_

 _"Yes, sir, we have its ID signature."_ The officer handed Donshe a datapad.  _"It's not in our databanks, but its profile suggests some low stock freighter... says it's being hit hard by a Sith warship."_ Donshe didn't respond, his focus on the datapad, an intense expression on his face. The officer hesitated, waiting for a reply before she spoke again.  _"Sir?"_

The captain's head snapped up, as if hearing her for the first time. He returned the datapad, his face becoming a passive mask once more.  _"I'll need to confirm with Command before we intercept."_ Meetra frowned as the log ended. Kreia had said nothing about Sith attacking the  _Ebon Hawk_ or the  _Harbinger_. She glanced over her shoulder at the old woman, but she didn't appear to have heard the log or noticed Meetra's attention. On the console, the next log began to play, revealing that Donshe had indeed brought the freighter aboard the warship. To her horror, he had also tethered the _Harbinger_  to a seemingly abandoned Sith warship. Meetra paused the log when Donshe attributed the collection of the  _Ebon Hawk_ to an admiral's order. Jazala had let slip that an admiral was believed to have "requested" her presence back in Republic space. Possibly a coincidence, but still... She logged the possible connection away and let the logs continue.

The next log revealed that while no survivors had been discovered on either ship, a body had been found aboard the Sith warship. Donshe made his unease known, but gave the order the bring the corpse on board for autopsy. Hesitantly, Meetra selected the final log, a small tremor shaking her hands. Donshe appeared once more, looking more haggard then in the previous logs.  _"... We're still experiencing a problems with the communications array, and now maintenance is telling me there's a cascade failure in the weapons sys -"_

 _"Sir!_ _"_ Once again, he was interrupted by the same female officer from the first log.  _"I just picked up an unusual sound from the medlab_ _."_ Tinny screams and the sound of glass breaking overlaid her image, followed by a gravely, unnerving voice:  _" **I have come for the Jedi**."_

 _"What the hell was that?!"_ Donshe demanded, face pale even in the washed-out hologram. 

The officer shook her head, the captain's intensity visibly heightening her panic.  _"Sir, I... I don't know - communications just got cut -"_

Donshe turned away from her, moving with frightening purpose.  _"Send a security team to the medlab! Now!"_ The log dissolved into static, but Meetra continued to stare at the space it had occupied. Something had followed the  _Ebon Hawk_ aboard the  _Harbinger_ and attacked her crew; most likely it was responsible for the bodies piled around her feet. Kreia's words returned to her: a different sort of assassin. She ran a hand through her hair, tugging at the ends. Why could she not remember any of this? Clearly, she had found herself aboard the  _Ebon Hawk_ before the  _Harbinger_ had been attacked, but she had no memory of the event. It wasn't possible this had occurred without her noticing. Even with Jazala and Dekar steering her away from the ship's more clandestine areas, she would have had to be unconscious to miss the warship pulling a freighter on board.

"Alright, we're good to go here." Meetra started and turned sharply at Atton's voice. He gave her an odd look, but she waved him off before he could speak. He didn't appear to have heard the logs; probably best to keep her knowledge of Sith involvement to herself. She joined him and Kreia, and the three gingerly picked their way back across the bridge's macabre carpeting. Atton allowed Kreia to move ahead of him, falling back to keep pace with Meetra. "Are you alright? Looked like you'd seen a ghost back there."

"In a way," she said, purposely keeping her answer vague. The sour look he gave her in return actually pulled a small laugh from her. "Republic ships are all the same; you've been on one, you've been on them all. That's all it is."

"Sure," he said, and she could hear the uncertain note in his tone. While not a lie, it was far closer than she liked. They were supposed to be able to trust each other, and here she was keeping potentially crucial information from him; information that she was almost certain Kreia had kept from her. The thought didn't sit well. Atton was still watching her and she fought the urge to brush her hair forward like a curtain between them, settling for a quick flick of her bangs to break his gaze. He looked away, appearing to realize that he'd made her uncomfortable. "Hope this plan of yours works. I mean, I've always said a beautiful women would probably be the death of me, but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

Meetra rolled her eyes and turned to mock-glare at him, but a flicker of movement behind his left shoulder caught her attention. Atton followed her gaze, brows drawing in confusion when he saw nothing there. "What's wrong?" She ignored him, stopping dead in the hallway while keeping on eye on the spot. Ahead of them, Kreia had stopped as well, her vibrocutter held out in front of her defensively. Atton glanced back and forth between them, fingers tightening on the grips of the mining blasters. Meetra scanned the hallway, reaching for the Force more out of comfort than anything. She felt its faint warmth flow through her, heightening her senses and calming her nerves. She had almost convinced herself the movement was a figment of her imagination when she spotted it again, this time over Atton's other shoulder.

Her instincts kicked in and she lunged forward, vibroblade extended. She threw her free hand out toward the rogue, using the Force to push him out of harm's way, ignoring his shout of protest. Rather than colliding with the ship's corridor, her blade caught on something solid and thin, but unseen: a rod or pole. Using the crossed weapons as leverage, she shifted her weight to her back foot and kicked out with her free leg, aiming where a person's midsection would be. A disembodied grunt echoed off the corridor walls as her boot impacted against a hard surface, with a little give beneath it - body armor? The rod disappeared from beneath her vibroblade as the invisible assailant slid to the side, but she caught herself before toppling, backing away to put herself between the attacker and her companions. A sort of static fizzled in the center of the hallway; her opponent had a stealth generator equipped, likely damaged by the kick to the chest. Meetra darted forward, feinting low, and then swung her vibrosword high, slicing the blade along her assailant's chest. Sparks followed the blade, the static increasing dramatically. Gathering the Force to her, Meetra gestured and flung the attacker sideways into the corridor wall.

The combined force was too much for the stealth generator and it failed, revealing a dark-clad figure slumped against the wall. A hood covered their face, one of the red lenses over the eyes cracked from the impact with the corridor. One hand still clutched a long rod with a sharp point at each end. Taking advantage of the group's surprise, the assassin lunged upright, squaring up against Meetra. They spoke, an angry masculine hiss emerging from beneath the mask. "You go no further, Jedi. I will deliver your body to my master."

"What the hell is going on?!" Meetra ignored Atton's outburst, concentrating on the assassin. She stretched her senses out, pushing her limited power in the Force to its maximum. She couldn't detect any trace of power from him, but her instincts and his mention of a master screamed "Sith." An apprentice in training perhaps, or maybe just a fanatic. Either way, she didn't much care. Meetra lunged at the assassin again, aiming to knock the staff from his hands. He anticipated the movement and stepped out of her range, bringing the staff around in a low sweep toward her ankles. She sidestepped the weapons, backing off as Kreia swept past her.

Despite her blindness, the old woman attacked with precision and fury. She forced the attacker back, the vibrocutter moving impossibly fast in her hands. Though she couldn't see the assassin's face, Meetra could read his desperation in his movements. He continued giving ground with every attack, constantly defending without opportunity for a counter-attack. Kreia broke her attack for only an instant, waving her hand in a mimicry of Meetra's earlier gesture, slamming the Sith into the wall. Meetra felt the old woman's power ripple through the Force, almost staggering her. Kreia drove her weapon into her opponent's side through a gap in the body armor, with enough force to snap the blade from the hilt. The assassin cried out, body curling in on itself like a bug pinned to a collection board, and then went limp, his staff falling to the floor.

For a long moment, no one moved. Kreia stood over the dead assassin, breathing slightly labored, one hand held out toward the body as if she expected it to lurch back to its feet. Meetra held her defensive crouch, vibroblade held out in front of her. Behind her, Atton stood with his arms hanging loose at his sides, too stunned by Kreia's brutal assault to speak. Eventually, Meetra broke the silence, slowly straightening and lowering her weapon. "We could have gotten information from him."

"We now know we are not alone on this ship," Kreia said. Her voice was level and cool, sounding almost detached from the situation. "What more information do we need?" She tossed the useless hilt next to the body and scooped up the staff. She turned to Meetra and held it out, extending her free hand as well. Understanding the unspoken request, Meetra took the staff and gave the old woman the vibroblade. She twirled the staff once, finding the balance and weight much closer to what she had been accustomed to than the mining beacon. She nodded to Kreia, who gestured back down the corridor. "We must continue. Our time was already short."

The motion seemed to snap Atton out of his trance and he backed away from both of them, half-raising his blasters. He gestured at the dead Sith, forcing Meetra to lean to the side to avoid any accidental fire. "I'm gonna need an explanation, or you need to find another pilot."

Kreia's lips thinned, but Meetra ignored her. "He was Sith."

Atton's eyes widened. "What? No, the Sith are dead, just like the Jedi."

"I saw it in the ship's logs," she explained. "They encountered and boarded an abandoned Sith warship."

"Let me guess: not so abandoned."

Meetra glanced over her shoulder at the body. "So it would seem. Something...  _else_... came back with them as well. It caused an emergency in the medlab."

Atton paled slightly. "Is it still here?"

She shook her head and shrugged. "I don't know."

"This is getting us no closer to our goal," Kreia cut in, the annoyance clear in her voice. "We have what we came for; I suggest we move quickly. It is not likely he was the last." She started off again, not bothering to see if the other two followed. Atton stared after her, then turned to Meetra. The distrust in his eyes was painful to see; the reluctant acceptance was almost as bad. Meetra opened her mouth, to apologize or defend herself, she wasn't sure, but he shook his head and turned away to follow Kreia down the corridor. Meetra trailed after him, doing her best to ignore the guilty pang in her chest. 


	11. An Answer and More Questions

Meetra leaned against the corridor wall, taking advantage of Kreia’s abrupt pause to catch her breath. It had taken them more than an hour to get halfway through the ship, and in that time they had encountered three more groups of cloaked Sith: two single assassins shortly after leaving navigation and a team of three fifteen minutes previous. Separately, the Sith were more than a challenge for her rusty combat skills and tenuous Force connection; three together would have killed her if she’d been alone. As it was, the last fight had done a number on the group. One of the assassins had slipped past her and Kreia and managed to clip Atton’s left shoulder with a force pike before Meetra could push him away, leaving the rogue unable to lift his arm high enough to make use of the second blaster. Meetra herself had taken a boot to the knee, resulting in painful limp, and a shallow cut from a hidden knife complemented the blaster scorch on her arm.

Kreia was the only one of the three to appear uninjured, though Meetra had seen the old woman take at least as many blows as she had. It didn’t slow Kreia down, however, and she refused to let the other two set a gentler pace. Glancing over her shoulder, the old woman’s mouth thinned as her blind eyes settled on Meetra’s slumped form. “Have our enemies agreed to allow us time to recuperate?” Meetra gave her a blank stare in return, refusing to rise to the bait. When a few moments passed without answer, Kreia turned away, no indication whether the lack of response upset her or not. “I suggest we continue.” She started forward without looking back to see if the others followed.

Expelling a heavy sigh, Meetra pushed herself away from the wall and straightened as much as her aching body would allow. Atton hovered just behind her shoulder, doing his best to pretend nonchalance and not sticking close enough to catch her if she stumbled. Though she could no longer sense others’ emotions, she didn’t need her Force connection restored to know that he was still angry with her for withholding the information about the Sith, but he was also concerned about her. Likely for his own safety, but still. There was some comfort in knowing that at least one of her companions were concerned for her well-being.

Ahead of Meetra, Kreia ducked into a short side hallway and cycled the door at the end of it. It opened into a wide room dominated by a long table in the center, surrounded on all sides by chairs placed an equal distance from each other. The three fanned out slowly, watching carefully for the telltale subtle flicker of the assassins’ cloaking devices, but, to Meetra’s relief, they appeared to be alone. Instinctively, she sank into the nearest chair while Kreia continued to prowl around the room and stretched out her injured leg. She muffled a hiss when pain lanced up through her knee and into her thigh and mentally added pulled muscles to the list of cuts, burns, and torn ligaments. Idly, she thumbed the harness pocket housing the medpacks, but decided against pulling one out. There were few to begin with and she would rather have them if something worse than the assassins was still lurking aboard the _Harbinger_.

“You alright?” She glanced up at Atton, still feigning only mild interest, and waved him away with a weak smile. Tired and hurt as she was, the idea of spending more time than absolutely necessary aboard the dead battleship made Meetra’s stomach clench.

Kreia rejoined them, satisfied with her exploration, and made a sharp gesture toward the door. Suppressing a pained groan, Meetra gathered her legs beneath and started to stand, but Atton gently pressed her back down with a hand on her shoulder. When Kreia raised an eyebrow, he shrugged with his good arm. “I think we can spare ten minutes.”

“Our pursuers will thank you when they catch up to us.”

“You think we’re gonna make any better time if one of us has to carry her?” Meetra grimaced, but she couldn’t deny the truth of Atton’s words. Medpacks would allow her to ignore the pain for a while, but without proper attention, her knee would eventually give out regardless and then she’d be even more of a liability. Atton dropped into the chair next to her with an air of finality and waved at the doorway. “That’s the only way in. With the door closed, we’ll know if those Sith bastards are here, even if they’re invisible. A ten minute break isn’t going to make the situation better or worse, but if you think you can make it out of here without us, by all means.” He folded his arms over his chest and met Kreia’s glare with his own.

After a long moment, during which Meetra was unsure if the old woman would back down or go for Atton’s throat, Kreia made a quiet noise of disgust and turned away, moving to sit at the end of the table furthest from them. Atton rolled his eyes and swiveled his chair to put his back to her, bringing him to face Meetra. “You need help with that?” he asked, pointing at her knee.

“Only thing that’ll really help is getting off it,” she said, “but thank you for offering.” A moment of hesitation, and then she continued. “And thank you for getting me a break.”

“Who said it was just for you?” His tone sounded offended, but it was just over the top enough for Meetra to realize he was joking. “Just like a Jedi to be so self-absorbed.” He grinned and leaned out of the way when she swatted at him half-heartedly, then grimaced as the motion tugged at his shoulder. Meetra started to apologize, but he held up a hand and shook his head, turning instead to inspect a small console set in the center of the table. “Think this has anything useful on it?”

“Maybe - probably not, though,” Meetra admitted. “It’s probably older than anything on the bridge terminals.” She purposefully didn’t broach Atton’s reaction to her delayed revelation of the information from said terminals and noted that he did the same.

“Can’t hurt to check.” Atton flipped through the first few logs, but they all appeared corrupted, shot through with too much white noise to even make out the audio. The last one, however, started to clear up after it began. Captain Donshe’s visage gradually materialized, mid-conversation.

“ _... wanted to check with you, sir, before diverting course from Telos._ ” There was a strained undertone to his voice, but nothing like what Meetra had heard on the logs in navigation. Definitely before whatever had slaughtered the ship’s crew. “ _There appears to be some battle that has taken place in the sector, and we’ve received a distress signal._ ”

The feed switched to display a younger man roughly Meetra’s own age, maybe four or five years her senior. His dark hair was swept to the side, bangs hanging loosely over his brow, though not as long as Atton’s. A goatee covered the lower part of his face, giving him a roguish-look that clashed with Donshe’s deference. Meetra vaguely recognized him from the little information that had disseminated to the Outer Rim since her departure from civilized space - Carth Onasi, a Republic pilot and allegedly one of Revan’s companions during her reappearance five years previous. “ _You have permission to divert course, Captain. If there’s a Sith presence in the region, I want you to investigate._ ” He paused and Meetra was startled by the naked hope that flashed across his face. _“The ID signature on the freighter… did you get confirmation on it?_ ”

If Donshe saw the desperation in the other man’s eyes, he didn’t give any indication, either oblivious to it or tactfully ignoring it. “ _Yes, sir. We did not have the vessel listed in our databanks, so we transmitted the code to you - was there a match?_ ”

Carth nodded, but Meetra noted he was careful to keep his emotions in check this time. “ _There was, Captain. If you find any trace of that vessel - even wreckage, I want it._ ” Donshe saluted in affirmation, which the younger man returned before continuing. “ _After you have investigated the sector, resume course to Telos with the passenger._ ” Meetra’s eyes narrowed at the veiled mention of her person. “ _It is of the highest importance that she reach Telos._ ”

“ _Yes, sir. I’ll make sure she arrives intact._ ”

“ _Good hunting, Captain. Admiral Onasi out._ ” Meetra kept her face blank, but inside her chest clenched tightly. If Carth, another person who knew and traveled with Revan for an extended period, was the one who wanted her found and brought out of exile, the implications scared her. Nothing from that part of her life was anything she wanted to revisit.

The hologram flicked back to Donshe, who let out a strained sigh. “ _Sometimes I wonder if the right hand of the Republic knows what the left hand is doing. I’m always being kept in the d-_ ”

HK-50’s visage materialized next to Donshe, and Meetra and Atton started simultaneously. “ _Query: You sent for me, Captain?_ ”

Donshe nodded absently at the droid. “ _Yes, I need you to check on the passenger again, see if there’s anything she needs. Try not to be too obvious about it. Her safety is our top concern._ ”

“ _Statement: I shall use the ‘utmost’ discretion, Captain._ ” Meetra shivered at the implied sarcastic undertone to HK-50’s words. Donshe seemed oblivious, however; no wonder the droid had been able to incapacitate the ship so easily. “ _As always, it is my pleasure to serve._ ” The log cut off abruptly, the rest dissolving into static.

Atton sat back, scowling at the space the hologram had occupied. “Can’t say I feel bad for turning it into scrap.”

“I just wish we’d found out who he was working for,” Meetra said, though she was only half-present for the conversation. Her thoughts chased the new revelations the holo presented, circling round and round in a dizzying loop. Carth was almost definitely the admiral who had ordered the _Harbinger_ to collect her from Belsavis, but she couldn’t fathom why. She’d never met the man, even before her exile to the Outer Rim, as least not that she could recall. Had he been a member of the Republic troops during the Mandalorian Wars? He was old enough…

Atton’s voice pulled her back to the present in time to catch the end of his continued musing on HK-50. “ - could it have gotten from here to Peragus? I mean, this ship just arrived and that rustbucket was here for days.”

“A question I’d like the answer to as well,” Meetra said, casting a sideways glance past Atton to Kreia’s back. The maintenance and security officer’s logs had indicated that HK-50 had arrived on Peragus aboard the _Ebon Hawk_ along with her and Kreia. How the three of them had ended up on the freighter was still a frustrating blank.

As if in response to Meetra’s comment, Kreia stood abruptly and swept past the two toward the door. “You have had your ten minutes. Any longer and we may as well save these assassins the trouble of ending our lives themselves.”

Atton turned his glare on her, but Meetra nodded and pushed herself to her feet without complaint. Her limp was still pronounced, but her knee felt marginally better; well enough to continue on for a bit, at least. Atton stood with her after a moment’s hesitation and the three slipped back out into the _Harbinger_ ’s main corridor. They moved forward slowly, all on high alert, but as they continued deeper into the ship’s inner workings, Sith assassins no longer lunged from the shadows.

A few scattered bodies began to litter the corridor as the ship’s hallways began to seem more familiar to Meetra, and with a jolt she realized they had crossed into the crew quarters. Most of the dead here had their faces obscured by helmets or lay face down, for which she was reluctantly grateful. Kreia led them through without pause, unfailingly stepping around any bodies rather than over them; an unspoken gesture of respect, perhaps. Meetra and Atton mirrored her, careful to give the corpses as much of a wide berth as possible.

Crossing another bulkhead threshold, a wave of deja vu stuck Meetra and she found her feet carrying her to a small door off the main path without her realizing it. Rather than stop her, Kreia turned to follow her, as if realizing the younger woman was being driven by something more than curiosity. When Meetra stopped in front of the door, Kreia gave her a searching look. “Are you alright?”

Meetra shrugged, unsure how to articulate the anxiety churning within her. Despite her annoyance over being taken hostage, albeit politely, her quarters had come to feel like a long-overdue respite from the last decade of nomadic travel. She’d felt a measure of security here, more so than she had since her exile, and the knowledge that that sense of safety had been an illusion was a painful thing to reconcile with. Still feeling Kreia’s eyes on her, Meetra offered her the simplest answer: “These were my quarters.”

“This was your room? When?”

Meetra flinched at the accusation in Atton’s voice, the confused undercurrent adding a second layer of guilt. She let out a weary sigh and made herself turn to face him. “Before I lost consciousness and woke up on Peragus… I was here. My presence was ‘requested’ on Telos, and the _Harbinger_ was sent to deliver me.”

“The VIP they mentioned - that was you.”

“Apparently.”

“Why - “

“I don’t know.” She tossed her hands up when Atton narrowed his eyes. “I have no idea, but the Republic went to a lot of trouble to find me: diverted a battleship, sent a squad of soldiers to escort me aboard, and gave me my own quarters.” Meetra folded her arms over her chest, hugging herself slightly. “I’m not really sure I want to know why.”

Atton stared at her in silence, mouth slightly hanging open. She felt bad for her outburst, but it felt good to express the unease rather than keeping it bottled up. Behind her, Kreia cleared her throat softly to ease the uncomfortable tension. “We do not have much time. Whatever you intend to do, do it quickly.”

Meetra nodded and cycled the door, crossing hesitantly over the threshold. The room was as she remembered: a spartan affair with two simple bunks, a pair of adequately comfortable couches, and a footlocker on each side of the room. She’d been the only occupant of the room for her short stay aboard the ship; only now did she wonder if there had been another crewman or two, who, whether voluntarily or by order, gave up their living arrangements to accommodate her. Pushing the thought away, she crossed to the footlocker on the far side of the room and lifted the lid, pulling out both objects contained within.

Kreia and Atton came in behind her, but Meetra ignored them as she turned the armband over in her hands. A thin curved plate of red-tinted metal backed with a slightly thicker piece of bantha leather layered over soft cloth and a sturdy elastic thong, she’d worn the band from her first campaign during the Mandalorian Wars to the day of her exile, and still she’d kept it with her, taking care to protect it from rust and disrepair. Her name and rank were etched on the metal in neat lettering, the slight unevenness to a few of the letters the only indication that it had been done by hand rather than machine. A gift given in friendship; a reward for loyalty; a reminder of the pain she’d caused.

Meetra slipped the armband into another pocket as her companions joined her, unwilling to face their questions, Atton’s in particular, and picked up the second item, a datapad, as she straightened. Unlike the band, it had come into her possession after boarding the _Harbinger_ , a loan from the captain to keep her informed and entertained during the journey to Telos. She turned the device on and the screen flickered to life, a notification glowing in the center, the words oddly familiar: _Meetra Surik, you are requested to report to the_ Harbinger _medical bay for routine examination. The routine is automated: simply insert this datapad into the medical computer to receive your injections._

“‘Routine,’ huh?” Atton said, reading over her shoulder. “Why do I get the feeling that’s not what happened?”

“I… I think I remember this,” Meetra said, squinting at the datapad. “At least, a little. I know I read this, but after that - nothing. Presumably, I went to the medical bay; whatever happened to me must have happened there.”

Atton watched her face for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “How far is it?”

Meetra glanced up at him, brows lifted in surprise at the unspoken offer in his words. “Not very. It’s just past the next bulkhead.”

He tapped the datapad, clearing the notification from the screen. “Don’t read too much into it, Jedi. i just want to find out if there’s someone else out there besides that scrap heap in the communications blister.”

She let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a wheeze, both amused and exasperated by Atton’s refusal to admit he was being nice for no other reason than he wanted to help her. Behind him, Kreia’s expression soured and she retreated back to the corridor to wait for them. Meetra tucked the datapad into her harness belt and scooped her staff up from the floor where she’d set it down. “I guess we better get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to give a huge apology to anyone following this work for the unexpected hiatus; I promise the fic isn't dead. Between finals and some life stuff, I wasn't able to update or work on the next chapter for a bit; however, everything is settled now and I should be able to update semi-regularly for the foreseeable future, and I will give advance notice in the future if another hiatus is unavoidable. Thank you to anyone who has continued to stick with this; I appreciate it more than you know.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! Comments/critiques/bookmarks/kudos are welcome and appreciated.


	12. Real Bad, Real Quick

The trek to the medbay was blessedly free of both corpses and Sith assassins, and the three arrived unscathed. As they entered, another wave a familiarity washed over Meetra, fuzzy memories rising to the surface: a hazy image of placing a datapad in the medbay’s central console; the warped view of the room from inside a kolto tank; an indistinct voice speaking to her, but without weight behind the words. She stumbled forward, but caught herself before toppling and pressed the heel of her free hand into her temple, as if the pressure could squash the sense of deja vu.

Kreia stepped past her without a word, but Atton paused at her shoulder, an eyebrow raised. She answered the unspoken question with a nod and shook her head to clear it, looking around the medbay with a more focused gaze. Kolto tanks lined the walls, all empty but still functioning. Had they the time, she would have suggested they take advantage of the tanks’ healing properties, but for now medpacs would have to do. The medical console sat in the center of the room, which was further divided by a larger tank in the center of the medbay toward the northern exit. The tank’s glass had been shattered, pieces scattered all around the platform and the liquid long since dried.

Atton knelt near the remains of the tank and carefully lifted a shard of glass, examining it slowly. He stood and circled the pillars supporting the platform, his expression growing more troubled with every step. By the time he returned to Meetra, his anxiety was palpable. “I don’t know who… _what_ … was in there, but the glass broke from the inside.” He made a fist, then spread his fingers outward to illustrate his point.

The implication was sobering. Simply due to their function, kolto tanks were built to withstand the pressure and the flailing of the occasional alarmed occupant; the force required to shatter one, from the inside no less, should have been more than anyone requiring the use of the tank would possess. Unsure what to do with the information, Meetra turned back to the central console. If there were any answers to be found, the terminal would have them. She pulled the datapad free of her harness belt and slid it into the port on the side of the console. Pulling the command screen up as the machine whirred to life, she selected the treatment request query when it appeared at the top of the list.

The screen flickered once, two lines of text replacing the command list: _Meetra Surik Treatment Request: Sedatives administered during routine examination 3.5 days ago. Emergency override enacted. Dosage exceeds safety protocols._ Meetra sighed and shook her head, a small part of her darkly amused by the revelation. “At least he was consistent.” At her shoulder, Atton gave her an odd look, but she waved it away, a wry smile twisting her mouth. “That’s one question answered, at least.” She brought the terminal back to the command screen and selected the first of three holo-logs.

The image of a woman with close-cropped dark hair took shape above the terminal, her expression pinched and anxious. Her voice emerged from the sea of white noise, sounding as exhausted as she looked. “ _Something’s wrong. Ever since we picked up that Sith firefight in the region, crewmen haven’t been reporting for their shifts and I can’t reach people on the comm._ ” She glanced around, and even in the opaque recording, the paranoia was evident in her eyes. “ _The strange thing is, I keep feeling like someone’s watching us, here in the ship, but I can’t see anyone… I don’t like this._ ” The image fizzled out in a burst of static, leaving Meetra with a heavy weight in her stomach. She exchanged a look with Atton, saw the same pity reflected there. Kreia, appearing uninterested in the logs, continued to prowl the room, but the old woman’s sightless gaze never strayed far from the shattered kolto tank.

When Meetra made no move to continue the logs, Atton reached past her and selected the next one in the list, rematerializing the medbay office above the terminal. She still looked tired, though some of the fear had faded. “ _Checking the survivor from the Sith vessel - I’m not sure whether he’s alive or dead, or what’s even keeping him together._ ” Across the room, Kreia finally paused, but did not look away from the broken tank. “ _His flesh is cracked and scarred, and I’m registering several thousand fractures in his skeleton, as if each bone was splintered repeatedly over time… and then put back together._ ” She winced, as if the act of describing the wounds caused her physical pain. “ _Judging from the scar tissue, I believe these wounds took place before his death. If so, he must have been in constant pain. I have no idea what’s been keeping him together._ ” Once more, the log faded into white noise, and then vanished entirely.

A sense of dread replaced Meetra’s horror, but, as if she had no control over her own limbs, she still reached out and selected the last log. The medbay officer appeared for a final time, blood caking the front of her uniform. She clutched her shoulder, a dark stain spreading beneath her hand as her arm hung limp and useless. Sweat beaded her forehead and slicked her skin, and panicked tears welled in her dark eyes. “ _This is the medical officer. The soldiers sent to the medical bay have just… died._ ” She paused, gasped for breath. “ _I don’t know where the subject went - I think he’s gone to find more of the crew. With him are Sith… they just appeared right out of thin air, like they were wearing stealth generators, but… I think they were always aboard. When we stopped to pick up that freighter, they must have come on board the_ Harbinger.” Terror drove the pitch of her voice higher. “ _I have no idea how many are on the ship… there could only be a few, or as many as a hundred. And with communications cut off, we can’t call for help._ ”

“He trapped them here.” When Atton frowned, Meetra quickly explained. “HK-50 told me he incapacitated the _Harbinger_ to capture me, but I don’t think he knew about the Sith. A happy accident for them.”

“Now I really don’t feel bad about sending it to the scrap heap.”

The medical officer continued to speak, fear etched in each line of her face. “ _I think that …_ thing _… in the tank was a Sith Lord… alive the whole time, waiting for something to wake him up._ ” As the log ended, Kreia’s blind eyes finally shifted from the tank to settle where the hologram had been.

Atton staggered back from the console. “A Sith Lord?!” His voice bounced up several octaves, threatening to crack on the last word. “What the hell did we get ourselves into?” A strangled, near hysterical laugh pulled itself free of his chest. “What am I saying? What the hell did you Jedi get _me_ into?”

Meetra barely registered his outburst, transfixed by the console’s screen. Though the last log had ended, footage from the medlab’s security cameras, perhaps queued up to begin after viewing the holos, began to play. The large central tank was restored now, a figure floating in the liquid within. Humanoid and male in appearance, he was tall, easily approaching two meters in height with a broad and muscular frame. He was shirtless, save for a ratty sleeve covering his right arm from hand to bicep; his lower half was clad in tattered fabric breeches and scuffed knee-high leather boots.

It was easy to see why the medical officer had been unable to discern whether the man was alive or dead. Every inch of exposed skin was gray and desiccated, covered with thick ropey scars that intersected and overlapped endlessly. Deep fissures broke through in places along his chest and shoulders, revealing dark necrotic muscle beneath, but his face was the worst. He was completely bald - not shaved, but hairless, the follicles long since shriveled or covered by thick scar tissue. A large portion of skin had sloughed off around his right eye, including the lids, revealing a sightless white orb surrounded by decayed flesh. The skin around his nose and mouth was impossibly taunt, his lips pulled permanently apart to expose tombstone teeth stained brown with age and rot. His intact eye was closed, a long fissure from his forehead to his ear running across it.

Another medical officer, a human man with short light hair, crossed the corridor in front of the tank, his posture relaxed. As he passed, the… man… in the tank twitched, his mouth opening and chest expanding in a short, silent gasp. The officer turned quickly, his confusion and uncertainty clear even in the grainy recording. He walked back to the tank, leaning forward to peer through the glass, and the creature within jolted awake. The recording was soundless , but the rage on the scarred man’s face as he opened his mouth in a silent roar chilled Meetra to her very center. The medical officer jerked backward, cowering with his hands over his ears as the Sith Lord’s mismatched gaze fell on him, and then fled as the kolto drained from the tank. The monster dropped to the platform, far more gracefully than Meetra had in her tank on Peragus, and lunged toward the glass, shattering it as he leapt free. He straightened and stalked after the officer, the security feed ending just after he vanished off-screen.

For a long moment, no one spoke. Meetra’s mouth was so dry she wasn’t sure she could; her tongue felt fused to the roof of her mouth and thick cotton filled her throat, choking down her words. Behind her, Atton had gone pale, mouth opening and closing silently. Eventually, he found his voice. “We’re dead.”

“Only if we remain here.” Meetra tore her eyes from the terminal’s screen to meet Kreia’s unseeing gaze. The old woman appeared as unflappable as ever, despite hearing the female officer’s logs.

“Kreia, he could be anywhere.” Meetra hated how small her voice sounded. She was a veteran of a sixteen-year war, trained by some of the greatest masters of the Jedi order; she shouldn’t be scared of a single Sith and his cloaked toadies… but it didn’t change the fact that she was.

“All the more reason to move on,” Kreia said pointedly. “Do you recall how much further to the fuel lines?”

“You can’t be serious.” Meetra flinched at Atton’s outburst, while Kreia, in a rare display of emotion, pursed her lips. Ignoring their reactions, he continued. “That monster is a Sith _Lord_ ; neither of you even have a lightsaber.”

“Then we should move quickly.”

“We’re not far,” Meetra interrupted, desperate to prevent an argument. “Two more bulkheads should put us at the engine deck. We can easily get to the fuel lines through a maintenance access there.”

Kreia wordlessly gestured for her to lead and, with a clear goal to temper the tide of her fear, Meetra found her limbs still obeyed her. She headed for the medlab’s northern exit, skirting the broken kolto tank as Kreia fell in behind her. When she reached the threshold of the room, she glanced back to see Atton still standing at the terminal, frozen, gaze locked on the console’s screen. “Atton?”

He jerked his head up, eyes wide and wild as they met hers. The fear there magnified her own, but also galvanized the part of her that needed to protect; the part, objectively, responsible for the two decade-old decision leading to her current situation. Ah, well. Old habits. She tipped her head toward the exit and relaxed a bit when the reluctant acceptance slid across his face, though it came with more than a little guilt. Atton sighed, running a hand through his hair, but he crossed the lab to join them and the three moved back out into the _Harbinger_ ’s corridors.

They passed through one bulkhead without incident, but a sense of uneasiness began to settle in Meetra’s chest. She recalled the medical officer’s sense of being watched and slowed her steps, scanning the hallway carefully. A slight blur to the air in front of her was her only warning and she barely had to time to shout before it surged toward her. Knee screaming in protest, Meetra threw herself backward, a loud smack echoing in the corridor as the unseen assailant’s weapon hit the floor where she’d stood. She swung her own staff, impacting her attacker’s shoulder with a satisfying thwack. Boot soles skidded against the floor as he slid backward and she took the opportunity to swing her staff in a downward arc, aiming roughly for a head or chest. The assassin blocked, recoil shivering down Meetra’s arms as the staves slammed together.

Kreia’s vibrosword flashed from Meetra’s periphery, sliding between her and the attacker. Despite being unable to see, the old woman’s aim was true. The assassin let out a strangled shout and toppled backward, Kreia’s blade sliding free with a new coat of blood. She gestured and the unseen body flew sideways, thudding into the corridor wall with a crunch and sickening crack. There was a fizzle of electronic static and the stealth generator failed, revealing the black and red-clad form of the Sith assassin. His neck hung at an unnatural angle and Meetra was grateful she couldn’t see his face.

Behind her, Atton shouted her name, and Meetra whirled in time to see him fall, knocked backward by another cloaked assailant. Drawing the Force to her, she threw her hand out, mimicking Kreia, and tossed the assassin away from the rogue. The attacker hit the floor hard, a grunt escaping him, and Atton, recovering faster than expected, pushed himself upright and fired toward the noise. Most of the shots hit dead center on the Sith’s chest, shorting out his cloaking. One went high, shattering the left eyepiece of his mask as it passed through.

Meetra limped to Atton’s side and took hold of his arm, helping him to his feet while taking care to keep pressure off his injured shoulder. “You alright?”

“Better than him.” He turned, blanching at the sight of the other assassin. “Uh, _them_.”

Kreia swiped her vibrosword clean on the hem of her cloak and then paused, head cocked to the side. From behind the group, further back in the bowels of the ship, there was a clatter; a single sharp rattle of metal against ceramic, quickly smothered as the silence rolled back in. The three hesitated, all listening intently, then Meetra touched Atton’s arm, gently pulling him back toward Kreia. “We need to go.”

They broke into a run, fear driving Meetra to push past the pain lancing up her leg. They passed through the second bulkhead, turning left through a door when she called it out. When it closed behind them, Atton turned and fired at the cycling mechanism, sealing them in the engine deck. Hurrying onward, they came to a three-way intersection and Meetra paused, searching her hazy memories for direction. Jazala - she pushed away the sharp pain in her chest that accompanied the thought of the young woman - had shown her a map of the ship’s layout when Meetra had first boarded in order to familiarize herself with where she could, and couldn’t, go. She started forward, Kreia following, but Atton caught her arm. “Wait a second.”

“Do you require another rest?” Kreia’s tone was even, but sarcasm oozed from every syllable.

Atton ignored her. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

The old woman audibly scoffed, but something in Atton’s voice gave Meetra pause. His sarcastic bravado, whether genuine or a performance, was completely absent. In its place, a seriousness that was almost startling. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you feel it?” When she frowned at him, he waved his hands in an expansive gesture, frustration tightening his jaw. “Something’s gonna get real wrong, real quick.”

Even with her connection to the Force restored, Meetra could barely even sense Atton and Kreia, even with their close proximity; anything else was still beyond her. “How do you know this?”

“You don’t survive on the Rim as long as I have without knowing when trouble’s coming.” The sudden hardness in Atton’s eyes startled her more than the grim revelation itself. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Everything back there? Whatever’s coming might be a thousand times worse. Trust me; when it comes to staying alive, I’m rarely wrong about these things.”

“Then we’ll be careful,” Meetra said, holding his gaze and keeping her tone as even as possible. Part of her badly wanted to call the Force to her, to use it gently nudge him toward believing her, but that would require more power than she could draw, more finesse than flinging a body into a wall. She refocused on Atton, willing him to trust her over his instincts. “But we have to keep moving.”

Seconds seemed to stretch into hours before he sighed and nodded. “Alright. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I’ll even be grateful for it.” She managed a weak smile, which he returned with a small chuckle. Feeling a bit more confident, Meetra took the lead again, moving straight through the intersection. Cycling through the door, they encountered another; a four-way split this time. This one Meetra recalled well enough. “Maintenance access is that way.” She gestured toward the right-hand hallway, then to the door directly across the way. “Should be a terminal to unlock it through th -”

A presence washed over her, a chilly emptiness that froze her voice in her throat. It loomed behind her, not an absence of the Force but a subversion of her perception of it: cold where she felt warmth, darkness rather than light, nails on a chalkboard in place of soothing notes. She whirled, finding Kreia already facing the presence. Startled at her reaction, Atton turned back as well, a breathy curse escaping him.

At the far end of the corridor, in front of the door Atton had ostensibly sealed, stood the Sith Lord. In person, his body was even more horrifying. His sightless eye seemed to glow against his decaying skin, the exposed muscle and sinew torn and shredded in places. In his right hand, he held a slim metal rod - a lightsaber. He watched the group for a long moment, seeming to study them, and then he walked forward, his steps unhurried. When he spoke, his voice was gravel and glass, heavy and sharp in all the wrong ways. “I came to warn you, Jedi. You know not what path you walk.”

“Warn me…” Meetra murmured, confused, but Kreia stepped between her and the Sith Lord, breaking the paralytic spell his appearance had cast.

“This battle is mine alone,” the old woman said, her voice calm and firm. One side of her mouth quirked upward in a small smile. “I am not defenseless.” She started toward the monster, brandishing her vibrosword with a small flourish.

“Kreia?” Meetra’s voice was quiet, with a hint of panic at the edges. She took a step forward, hand unconsciously lifting to reach out toward the other woman. Kreia turned back as she passed the threshold into the corridor and gave her a genuine smile, the first since they had met.

“He cannot kill what he cannot see, and power has blinded him long ago.” She waved a hand, as if instructing a child to go play outdoors. “Run. I shall be along shortly.” With another gesture, she forced the door shut between them. She curled her fingers inward, warping the cycling mechanism in response. Kreia turned away, taking care to block Meetra’s attempts to reach her through the Force. It would do her no good to have the younger woman’s bleating distracting her.

She advanced on the scarred man, weapon held loosely to the side. He stopped as she continued toward her, head cocked to the side as he stared forward unseeingly. “I sense you, my Master. Faint… weak.”

Kreia sniffed, annoyed. “Your senses betray you.” Her steps were soundless; even the edge of her robe was silent as it brushed along the floor. “As you betrayed me.”

The Sith began moving again, measured and precise this time. He was being careful. “After all that has happened, still you live.” He chuckled grimly. “You are difficult to kill.”

She smiled, as sharp and vicious as the sword she wielded. “For one as limited as you, perhaps. To have fallen so far and learned nothing - that is your failing.” Kreia moved to the fringes of the corridors, careful to give the Sith a wide berth.

He reached the center and paused, swaying in place. His head swiveled slowly from side to side, bringing to mind the image of a radar dish. “The failure is yours. No longer do your whispers crawl within my skull. No longer do I suffer beneath teachings that weaken us.” His voice grew louder with every word, anger and pride mingling so thoroughly it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. “And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead, save one - and one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come.”

As he spoke, Kreia circled the intersection until she stood behind him. His words pulled a sneer from her. Once a fool, always a fool. “Perhaps. We shall see.” Gripping her vibrosword tightly, she shifted her weight, pivoted on one foot, and swung the blade downward toward the scarred man’s neck.

His reaction was instant. Lightsaber powering on with a burst of scarlet energy, he spun on his heel, ducking out of the blade’s path as he swung his own weapon upward. Kreia released the vibroblade and threw herself backward, but too slowly. The beam sliced through the sleeve of her robe, severing her left hand at the wrist. She collapsed to her knees, clutching the wounded limp, but not a sound escaped her. To cry out would be giving the Sith a free follow-up at her neck. He stood before her, lightsaber held defensively in front of him. His head tipped to the side again, listening to pinpoint her location.

Inwardly shrieking, Kreia stood, holding her stump against her stomach. Though she was in agony, he had done her the favor of cauterizing the wound; at least she wouldn’t bleed to death. As silently as she’d approached, she slipped away, vanishing into the corridor’s shadows while the monster remained, his blind eyes still seeking her.


	13. So Close...

“ _Kreia_!” Meetra lunged after the old woman, but Atton grabbed her arm, yanking her back. She shook him off and started to dart forward again, only for him to catch her around the waist with his good arm, hauling her off her feet. Meetra thrashed, but her injuries and exhaustion coupled with the overall lack of upkeep had left her far weaker than she’d once been. Atton turned and deposited her, quickly pulling his arms out of her reach. He held them out slightly, as if he expected her to rush him. She tensed, ignoring the stab of pain that flooded her knee. “Move.”

“Not happening.” For the second time since they’d met, all joviality was gone from Atton’s voice, his warm brown eyes gone dark and flinty. Even beneath his jacket, Meetra could see that his muscles were taunt; his frame almost quivered with tension. The skill Meetra had noted even when he’d been at rest was now on full display: his weight was distributed evenly, shoulders squared, arms extended but still loose. Even with her training, Meetra was sure she wouldn’t win a physical fight.

Almost before she realized it, the Force surrounded her, its pure melody chiming in her ears. Was it louder than before? The sensation was so heady Meetra couldn’t tell. It felt like it would be easy to toss Atton aside and rip the door open. She didn’t want to hurt him, but Kreia needed them… needed her. “I’m not leaving her.”

“You heard her. She can take care of herself.”

“She’s an old blind woman!” Meetra’s anger got the better of her, driving her volume higher; she tamped down the emotion, some of her old lessons still holding strong after a decade of disuse. “Atton, he’ll kill her.”

“We both know she’s more than that.” His face softened and he lowered his arms slightly, lifting his hands, palms out, towards her. “What if you get in there and distract her? Then she’s dead for sure, and we probably will be, too. She made her choice; have a little faith in her.”

The sense in his words cut through the rush of her connection to the Force, bringing Meetra back to herself. A wave of embarrassment and disappointment washed over her; she could practically hear Kreia’s disapproval, mingling with the faint reproachful voices of her past. With it came guilt, and she was grateful Atton wasn’t aware of how close she’d come to unleashing her frustration on him. Instead, she refocused the lingering power, reaching for Kreia’s mind with her own. _Kreia? Kreia, can you hear me?_ ” The answering silence was deafening.

Atton took her stillness for acquiescence and he tentatively relaxed. “Are we good?”

Meetra nodded and released her hold on the Force, sagging a little as exhaustion settled back on her shoulders. Her knee barely supported her weight and the blaster burn on her arm was beginning to sting again as the effects of the medpac started to fade. She fumbled with the pocket on her harness, pulling another out and popping the cap loose. Gathering her flagging strength, she stabbed the needle into her thigh, breathing a sigh as the painkillers started to do their job.

“How long do you think you can keep going?” She looked up to find Atton still watching her. His face was stoic, but the furrowed brows betrayed his concern.

“I’ll be fine.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, lips curving up in a smirk. “Let’s try an honest answer this time.”

Meetra glared at him, but he met her gaze without flinching. Resigned, she answered truthfully. “Half an hour; forty-five minutes at the most. After that, I’ll just slow you down.”

Atton was silent for a moment, then he nodded and strode past her, gesturing toward the room across from them. “Let’s get moving. Maintenance console’s through here, right?” Meetra nodded, trailing after him with a last look behind her. _Kreia… if you can hear me, please be safe._

The maintenance door was sealed, but Atton was able to hack it open with little effort. He dealt with the terminal in a similar manner, slicing easily through the encryption. His talent with electronics was genuinely impressive, and Meetra filed the knowledge away. With the maintenance access unlocked, the two headed back out to the intersection and down the hall Meetra had indicated earlier, passing through the bulkhead into another long corridor. Gradually, the steel and chrome gave way to thick metal catwalks, the ship’s ambient lighting occluded by a deep red glow. To their right, the large ion engines loomed out of the darkness, inanimate monoliths towering over their escape.

Meetra located the main control panel for the engines, calling up the maintenance protocols after a quick search. The nearby bulkhead slid open, a new corridor leading to the fuel line. She started for the door, pausing when she noticed Atton had fallen behind again. His face had taken on a grayish pallor beneath the dim lights. “So, uh, any chance I can convince you not to go through with this crazy plan?”

“Trust me, if there was another way…” she trailed off, unsure how to further convince him. “I don’t like this, either, so if you have another idea, I’m all ears.”

He hesitated, gaze unfocused as he ran a hand through his already ruffled hair, and then shook his head. “Alright. But if - ” Atton paused, a rueful smile stealing across his face, “ - _when_ something goes wrong, I’m blaming you.”

She laughed, and there was a melancholy ring to it. “Fair enough, but that’s a pretty long line you’ve joined.” He tipped his head to the side, but Meetra turned away, irritated with herself for the slip, before he could voice the question she saw in his eyes. A conversation for another time. They were starting to form quite the list of those.

As distracted as she was, Meetra barely registered a tingling in her right hand before the pain hit. Like fire in her veins, it surged up her arm, suffusing her entire body, and drove her to her knees. A scream, raw and full-throated, tore itself from her chest, echoes bouncing back at her from between the ion engines. Dimly, she was aware of another voice, strangely familiar, shrieking along with hers. The pain coalesced into a white-hot point, searing her from the inside out, and a red haze blotted out her sight. Her sense of time receded, leaving her unaware of how long she crouched there, clutching her arm to her chest. Gradually, the sensation faded, her keening giving way to gulping sobs. The second voice grew fainter as well, replaced by Atton’s panicked shouts. “Hey! Snap out of it!”

Her awareness began to return, the curtain of red pulling back from her vision. Atton crouched in front of her, gripping her arms just short of hard enough to bruise. He called to her again, giving her a gentle shake. Meetra managed to lift her head, finding him startlingly close. She blinked blearily at him as his face swam in front of her, but she managed to focus on his eyes, noticing flecks of hazel throughout the brown.

The act of noticing jolted her back to full awareness and she leaned away, startled. Atton loosened his grip, but didn’t release her. “What the hell just happened?”

“I…” Meetra shook her head, squeezing her wrist. The pain had faded physically, but she doubted the memory of it would leave her anytime soon. None of her injuries, even the Mandalorian blade slicing through her leg, came close to that agony. She recalled the second scream, breath catching as she realized why it had sounded familiar. “I think it was Kreia.”

Atton scanned her face, brows drawing downward. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure, but… Atton, I think she’s hurt, or - ” She swallowed, as if the action would ease the panic rising in her chest.

His expression softened. “Ah, _druk._ ” He squeezed her arms once and then let go. Freed from his grip, Meetra had the sudden feeling of being untethered. “Meetra, I’m… Whatever happened, we can’t waste this chance. She’s buying us time; if we stay here, all of that is for nothing.” Atton glanced back the way they’d come, face darkening. “And if Sleeps-with-Vibroblades is done playing with her, he’ll be coming after us next.”

Meetra was torn, but it was hard to argue with his logic. She nodded and Atton stood, reaching back down to help her to her feet. Her knee throbbed, the pain renewed despite the medpac’s influence, and she instinctively leaned into his hold. He supported her weight without commenting on the weakness, for which she was grateful, only moving away when she did.

Meetra took the lead again and they passed through the bulkhead, entering into the thick line leading back into the fuel depot. The _Harbinger_ had long since finished fueling, but a faint acrid scent hung in the air, adding to the already claustrophobic darkness. The two were forced to move slowly, Meetra squinting through the gloom to discern their path. Even so, she nearly tripped over a waist-high object, stumbling backward when it came to life with a high-pitched beeping. A soft light illuminated the fuel line, revealing a small battered droid - the source of the glow came from his disc-shaped head. The droid beeped again, interjecting a sharp whistle as he rolled back and forth.

“A droid?” Derision and disbelief warred for control of Atton’s tone. “How did it get down here?”

Meetra knelt to the droid’s level and put a calming hand on the top of his head, halting the torrent of electronic noise. “Slow down. Start over.” The droid let out a short whirr, punctuated with several trills. Meetra’s eyes widened, and then she smiled and patted him gently. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

Atton glanced down at her with a raised eyebrow. “Do you know it?”

“Remember the droid I contacted in administration?” She gave the little robot a last pat and stood. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Meetra; this is Atton.” The droid chirped brightly, which Meetra translated for Atton. “He’s T3-M4. Says he also had a run-in with our mutual assassin-droid friend.” T3 burred sadly. “It’s not your fault. Besides, we’d never have made it off that level if it wasn’t for you.” He whistled and beeped, ending on a short sharp trill. “Of course. Are you operational enough to travel?”

“Wait, wait.” Atton moved to stand between Meetra and T3. “It’s not coming along. How do we know it won’t turn on us the first chance it gets?”

She frowned, confused. “Why would he?”

“It’s a droid; they break.” He spoke slowly, as though talking to a child. “That’s what they do. Even if it isn’t planning on killing us, I’d bet all my credits it’ll get the job done.”

“He’s already helped us once. If he wanted to kill us, he would’ve left us trapped in administration.” Meetra pointedly stepped around him. “I’m not leaving anyone else behind.” Atton opened his mouth, but wisely closed it. T3’s head swiveled back and forth between the two before giving a hesitant series of chirps, answering Meetra’s question in the affirmative. She nodded and started down the fuel line again. “Good. Let’s keep going.” She risked a peek over her shoulder, breathing a small sigh of relief when Atton fell in behind her.

With T3 lighting the way, it was relatively easy to find the nearest maintenance exit and the three spilled out onto the service floor of the fuel depot, drawing to a halt at the sight of several smashed and shattered mining droid husks. Atton swallowed and shot her a sideways glance. “You, uh... you didn’t do this, huh?”

“Maybe the miners? There aren’t any bodies,” Meetra said, but her half-hearted tone belied her confidence in the suggestion. They edged their way through the depot, finding more droid corpses scattered in all directions. T3 voiced his unease with a low whistle and Meetra dropped a reassuring hand on his head. “I know; me, too. We’re almost there, though.”

The dismantled droids began to drop off as they reached the hanger entrance and Meetra got her first look at the _Ebon Hawk_ through the large view panel at the top of the ramp. The battered freighter wasn’t much to look at. A Dynamic-class, it was shaped like a malformed horseshoe. The back of the ship was curved, while the cockpit stuck out from the front, a panel connecting it to the port side. Once painted in vaguely Republic colors, the orange had darkened and faded, the steel dingy and heavily pockmarked. It balanced on two large landing struts, the gangway jutting out between and in front of them. Despite its age and general wear and tear, the freighter still looked space-worthy.

Leaving her and T3 at the top of the ramp, Atton descended and crossed to the hanger door, cycling it fruitlessly. He grunted in frustration and aimed a kick at the door. Meetra peered over the side of the ramp at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Door’s magnetically sealed.” He thumped a fist against the door, as if continued abuse would eventually convince it to open. “Our only way out is right there, and I can’t get this thing open.” He turned and leaned against the door, shoulders slumped in defeat.

Before Meetra could weigh the pros and cons of trying to pry the door open with the Force, T3 began to chirp and whirr rapidly, too quickly for her to catch more than a few words. He rolled past her to a terminal at the end of the viewing platform. A scomp link slid out from his chassis, the metal arm extending to connect to a port on the console’s base. A cascade of text scrolled across the screen, faster than Meetra could process, and then the little droid pulled back the arm with a satisfied beep. Down below, the hangar door seal released with a loud thunk and cycled open, causing Atton to let out a short shout of surprise when it dumped him on the floor. Meetra peeked over the edge of the platform again, struggling to hide her amusement. “You alright?”

He glared up at her as he pulled himself upright. “Little tin can did that on purpose.” T3 whistled indignantly as he followed Meetra down the ramp, but he kept her between himself and the rogue when Atton took a threatening step toward the droid. Meetra caught his arm and gave him an admonishing look, and, with a sigh and eyeroll, Atton turned back toward the hangar entrance. She limped after him, and the three made their way down to the hangar floor. The sight of the ship put a spring in Atton’s step and he jogged the rest of the way to the _Ebon Hawk_ , turning back to flash a cocky grin. “Want me to carry you over the threshold?”

“I’ll manage,” Meetra said, returning the rogue’s suggestive eyebrow waggle with an unimpressed smirk. A sudden memory of hazel-flecked brown eyes flashed in her mind, rattling her, but she chalked it up to a decade of nomadic living. It had been so long since she’d been in close proximity with another person; no wonder it felt strange. T3 beeped softly, startling her out of her reverie, and she looked down to find the little droid’s head swiveled up toward her. He repeated the question and Meetra smiled reassuringly. “Yes, I’m fine. Just… tired, I think.”

“You can sleep on the ride out,” Atton interjected, starting up the boarding ramp. “The longer we stay, the less likely we are to leave.”

“What about Kreia?” Atton paused and looked back at her, impatience and resignation chasing themselves across his face. He opened his mouth, but Meetra headed him off. “I know what I felt, but… she could still be alive.”

“Yeah, she could. Alternatively, that karking monster could be on his way here right now.”

“I know,” she said, ignoring the surprise that lifted his eyebrows into his hairline. “Start prepping the ship. If she’s not here by the time we’re ready to take off…” Meetra trailed off, forcing herself to compartmentalize her grief and frustration. They’d come too far for her to give in to her emotions now. “You’re right; we can’t stay here.”

“I love it when you agree with me.” Smug attitude firmly back in place, Atton continued up the ramp, walking backwards to keep her in view. “Keep it up and I might just have to -” He cut off mid-thought, staring past her at the hangar entrance with widening eyes.

Meetra followed his gaze and her heart stopped. There was a shiver of movement near the door, an unnaturally hazy sheen in the air. Another glimmered in her peripheral, followed by more along the hangar wall left and right of the entrance. As though following a silent command, the stealth generators shut off to reveal two dozen Sith assassins ringing the hangar, leaving the _Ebon Hawk_ well and truly surrounded.


	14. Explosive Exit

For a long moment, no one moved.

The Sith assassins were almost statuesque, their red lenses appearing to glow beneath the hangar lights. The only sign of life among them was a small twitch of the wrist here, the faint rise and fall of a chest there. Sound seemed to have shorted out as well; the only thing Meetra could hear was the pounding of her heart roaring in her ears. Fear rooted her to the spot, drowning the lessons of her past urging her to move.

A flicker of movement caught her attention, drawing her eye to one of the Sith near the door. He tilted his head slowly, as if someone were whispering in his ear. He raised his staff a foot or so off the ground and held it there, going quiet again with his head still cocked toward the phantom voice. The anticipation accelerated Meetra's pulse further, every beat a hammer blow against her sternum. An unnatural dread crept up her back, settling in her chest and shoulders - all the warning her feeble connection to the Force could muster. The assassin held his pose for a second more and then he brought the staff down, the point creating a sharp ringing when it connected with the hangar floor. The sound was freeing, bringing the world back to normal speed. Several of the Sith surged forward in a black wave, the remainder tightening their half circle formation behind the forward guard.

"Prep the ship!" Meetra shouted, lifting her her staff defensively. Behind her, she head Atton's boots clatter against the the gangway and she breathed a small sigh of relief. At least she could trust him to act under pressure. She drew the Force to her, letting its warmth infuse her fatigued body and mind. The familiar and comforting melody, quiet as it had become, lent her confidence and strength, just as it had on the battlefield of Dxun long ago. Meetra thrust out a hand, focusing on a largish tool chest to her left, and attempted to fling it at the oncoming assassins. It was just the slightest bit too heavy, half skidding along the floor rather than flying through the air, but it got the job done. The approaching Sith scattered as the container landed among them. The majority fell back to join their companions' semi-circle, but a group of three continued their forward press. Meetra clenched her staff and pushed herself as deep into the Force as she could, preparing for an inevitable last stand, but a hail of blaster bolts came from over her shoulder and peppered the floor at the assassins' feet, sending them scurrying back into the ranks of their fellows.

Meetra risked a glance over her shoulder and saw T3 rolling down the loading ramp, the little droid bristling with weaponry. Two mechanical arms on either side of his chassis bore close-range deterrents - a small flamethrower and a taser respectively - and a compartment on the top of his disk-shaped head had slid back to reveal a modified blaster. He fired another barrage as he came alongside her, his high-pitched whistle a clear warning, and Meetra had to smile. Despite his size and original purpose, T3 had as many secrets up his figurative sleeve as any of them. 

Static crackled in her ear, startling her - she'd forgotten about the commlink since reuniting with her companions. Atton's voice came through, tinny and interspersed with white noise. "Need a few minutes before I can fire up the engines. How we doin' out there?"

"Oh, you didn't hear?" Meetra gestured and sent an oxygen tank tumbling into the crowd of Sith. Most of them darted out of the way, but the projectile managed to clip one across the temple. He stumbled backward and dropped in a limp heap as the rest of the assassins' slid away from him. "Turns out, they've seen the error of their ways and we've reached an agreement: they're gonna go back to their ship and let us leave, and we'll both let bygones be bygones."

"Well, guess we won't be needing this laser turret, then." With a mechanical clatter and electronic whir, a hatch beneath the  _Ebon Hawk_ 's cockpit slid open and the gun descended, unfolding out toward the bunched-together assassins. They scattered, shadows fleeing behind large containers and into far corners, as Atton began to fire, each heavy thunk of the turret releasing a massive bolt of energy. Several of the Sith were either too slow or too unlucky, the turret fire punching straight through their body armor. "I can't keep them occupied forever, so when you're ready to waltz on up that ramp, that'd be great."

 "I'm sorry my willingness to defend our only way out with my life is an inconvenience." Atton chuckled, the sound low and shot through with static, and Meetra smiled. She took a step back toward the ramp, using her staff to tap T3's chassis and get his attention. "Time to go!" He chirped in acknowledgement and rolled backward, slipping past her to sit further up the ramp where he still had a clear shot while Meetra limped after him. 

Taking advantage of the turret's limitations, one of the Sith darted out from the ship's far side, racing low to the ground beneath the gun's range and leaping up to the ramp. T3 squealed a warning a moment too late and the assassin slammed a shoulder into Meetra's, knocking her off balance. Her injured knee finally gave completely and she hit the ramp with a heavy thud, her staff jarred loose from her grip. T3 zipped forward, taser arm extended, but the Sith leveraged his own staff beneath the droid's treads, tipping him on his side. The assassin yanked the weapon back, flipped it around, and slammed the point down toward Meetra's chest, each movement blindingly fast. She tried to drag herself out of the way, managing to shift enough that the staff's point stabbed into her shoulder rather than its intended target.

A muffled curse slipped between her gritted teeth, but the tuneless song in her head kept her grounded through the pain. Meetra seized the staff, keeping it pinned in her body, and waved her hand in a swatting motion. The assassin flew backward with a shout, colliding with a large green cargo container and sliding bonelessly down the side. Clenching her jaw, Meetra yanked the staff free of her shoulder, a yelp escaping her before she could push it down. Her muscles burned, the sleeve of the mining uniform darkening with every beat of her heart, but she clung tighter to the Force, masking the pain and pushing it to the furthest corner of her consciousness. She pushed herself to her feet with her good arm and stumbled to T3. The little droid squawked and whistled, but she ignored his concern as she knelt next to him and leaned on his exposed strut, using her weight to flip him back upright. He continued to chatter, though his alarm was focused behind her now. Foreboding turning her insides to ice, Meetra risked a look back.

Faced with losing their quarry, the Sith abandoned safety, surging across the hangar en masse. Atton's aim was still true, most of the assassins falling to turret fire before they neared the loading ramp, but several were already too close for comfort and one or two were already past the turret's reach. T3 warbled at Meetra and gently rammed her uninjured leg with a strut, urging her to move. She snatched up the assassin's staff and used it as crutch, hobbling the rest of the way up the loading ramp while T3 covered her from behind, alternating laser barrages with generous sprays from his flamethrower. Once over the ship's threshold, T3 used his scomp link to interface with a port on the the inner frame and the hatch slammed shut behind them. Outside, several thuds echoed against the thick steel and turret continued to fire in muffled blasts.

Meetra sagged against the  _Ebon Hawk_ 's inner hull, her temporary strength beginning to evaporate, but T3 issued a sharp whistle punctuated with several trills: no time to rest. She followed him down the corridor into the ship's main hold, a large open area connected to the other sections of the  _Ebon Hawk_ by thin hallways. The hold itself was as unremarkable and well-used as the ship's exterior, with a few spartan couches and tables ringing a large circular console in the room's very center. T3 led Meetra through without pausing, exiting the hold via the northern corridor. They bypassed a communications node full of flashing lights and assorted beeps, coming out into the cockpit where Atton sat in the pilot's chair, his hands dancing across the ship's controls. He glanced over his shoulder as they entered, eyes widening at the blood-soaked sleeve of Meetra's uniform. "What the hell happened?"

"A disagreement," Meetra said, limping across the cockpit to take the co-pilot's seat next to him. She sank into it, grateful for the chance to rest her knee, and propped her staff on the console as T3 rolled up between them. Atton glanced sideways at her, most of his attention still focused on shooting down Sith assassins. "You alright?"

"I'll manage."

"Well... don't bleed on the upholstery." Meetra snorted, prompting a quick grin from Atton. It disappeared as he refocused on the targets outside the ship. " _Druk_." Meetra followed his gaze to see another wave of assassins surge through the hangar entrance, blacking out the floor beneath them. Atton recalled the turret, fingers flicking over the  _Ebon Hawk_ 's console's with purpose. "Strap in! Unless you want a quick and painful trip back to the hold." Meetra obeyed, pulling the seat's restraints across her body while T3 locked his treads with an audible thunk. He let out a mournful burble and she patted his head, as much for her own comfort as the droid's. Another pass of Atton's hands and the ship's engines roared to life, the ship vibrating with the initial rumble. 

The  _Ebon Hawk_ rose from the hangar floor, landing struts and loading ramp sliding back into their housings, and turned in place, its movements smooth under Atton's careful hand. The hangar door slid open, the automated system that allowed the  _Harbinger_ to dock providing their escape, and Atton eased the ship out, opening the thrusters wider as they cleared the hangar. The star-dusted expanse of space stretched out before them, marred only by slowly drifting asteroids, and Meetra felt her chest loosen for the first time since awakening in the kolto tank. With that relief came a sharp pang of guilt. If not for Kreia's sacrifice, their escape would have ended on the  _Harbinger_. She closed her eyes, giving herself a moment to grieve for the old woman's loss, and the losses who came before.

A warning klaxon blared from the console, jarring Meetra back to reality, and Atton cursed, silencing the alarm with one hand while guiding the ship with the other. The  _Ebon Hawk_ banked hard to starboard, slinging Meetra against her restraints and aggravating her shoulder. T3 shrieked as he slid into her chair, his treads scraping against the ship's floor. Outside the viewscreen, green laser bolts flew past, worrying close. "What's happening?"

"The  _Harbinger_." Atton's answer was clipped, as if the act of giving it took away from the focus needed to avoid the warship's fire. "She's chasing us." He sent the freighter into a steep drop and Meetra's knuckles whitened as she clutched the arms of her chair, her stomach rising into her throat. Atton cut hard to port and darted into the asteroid field, zigzagging between the rocks at an uncomfortable speed. The  _Harbinger_ 's fire followed them, the ship presumably close behind. "What did you do to make these guys so angry?! Besides the whole Jedi thing."

"I don't think they need more than that." She flinched as the ship veered unnervingly close to a particularly large asteroid. "What if we jump to hyperspace?"

"In this?!" Atton gestured at the asteroid field. "I mean, sure, entering hyperspace in half a million little pieces will stop them chasing us. We have to clear the field first, but if we do, they'll have a clear shot."

"Could we jump before they hit us?"

"... How confident do you want me to be in my answer?" His jaw tightened as he put the  _Ebon Hawk_ through its paces, the freighter careening from cover to cover while the  _Harbinger_ loomed after it. "Look, we don't have a lot of options here. First option: one of those shots hits us and we're like so much slag in the solar wind."

"Option two?"

"They hit an asteroid and the whole field goes up," Atton said. "Even refined, Peragus fuel is volatile. In its pure state..." He trailed off, leaving the implication hanging between them. "We might - keyword here,  _might_ \- be able to use that to our advantage, but I don't know if we'd clear the field and jump in time."

Meetra chewed her lip, wincing when another of Atton's maneuvers threw her against the chair's straps and jarred her shoulder. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off and a deep throbbing had set up in the muscles there, accompanied by a faint lightheadedness. The rational part of her identified the symptoms of blood loss from experience; she'd felt them more times than she cared to count during the Mandalorian Wars. The realization made her decision for her. "Option three."

"Care to enlighten me about this mythical third option?"

"We keep our distance until we can clear the field, then we jump to hyperspace." He gave her a sideways look, mouth pressed into a thin line. "It's less of a risk than blowing the field before we clear it, and  _if_ -" She stressed the word, unable to stop herself from holding out the smallest bit of hope that Kreia had survived, "- someone is still alive on the station, we have to give them a chance." Meetra offered a weak smile and reached across to squeeze Atton's arm. "Besides, I've got faith in my pilot."

Atton glanced down at her hand and then back to her face, his ever-present mask falling briefly to show genuine surprise. Then he clenched his jaw and nodded. "Hang on. This isn't gonna be pleasant." Meetra pulled her arm back and resumed her death grip on her chair's arms as Atton looped the _Ebon Hawk_ around an asteroid to gain speed and shot toward the far side of the field. The  _Harbinger_ followed, its bow cutting elegantly and ruthlessly through the black as it peppered the space around the freighter with emerald energy, but Atton held course. As they neared the edge of the field, one of the larger rocks drifted in front of them, forcing Atton to pull the  _Ebon Hawk_ up sharply to avoid it. As the freighter headed into open space, one of the  _Harbinger_ 's shots struck the asteroid dead center.

Meetra felt the explosion, the shock waves rattling the  _Ebon Hawk_ 's frame. More followed, a brilliant orange glow flickering at the edges of the viewscreen. As the glow brightened and the vibration grew stronger, - Meetra felt it in her bones, in her teeth - Atton spun up the hyperdrive and space began to _lengthen_ around the ship. The orange light bled to the very corner of the viewscreen and the stars stretched into white smears. The gravity pressed Meetra back into her seat; at her side, T3 wailed, his treads squealing as they fought against the pull.

Gradually, the long white lines gave way to the soft blue glow of hyperspace and the g-force eased, and Meetra sucked in a deep breath, heard Atton do the same. They sat together in silence, staring blankly down the hyperspace tunnel. After a long moment, Meetra turned to Atton and found him watching her, the question on her tongue reflected in his eyes: _What now_?

"It seems even a fool has his uses."

Atton lunged to his feet, a mining blaster appearing in his hand as if by magic, while, Meetra, encumbered by her injuries and the seat's restraints, could barely crane her neck far enough to see over the back of the chair. " _Kreia_ _?!"_ The old woman stood at the cockpit's entrance, half hidden in shadow from the corridor behind her, but her dour expression was visible in the blue glow seeping through the viewscreen. Meetra extracted herself from the safety straps and staggered toward Kreia, leaning against one of the cockpit's rear passenger seats for support. Atton followed, reholstering the mining blaster, but he regarded Kreia with wary eyes. Meetra was simply relieved to see her alive. "How - when did you get on board?" She glanced down, voice dying in her throat when she saw the empty space beneath Kreia's left sleeve. "What happened back there?"

Kreia waved Meetra's concern away, a scowl twisting her lips at the note of pity in the other's voice. "We do not have time for questions. Our enemies will pick up our trail soon enough, and we must be ready."

"Not sure if you missed the light show, but that warship is slag, along with the rest of Peragus," Atton said.

Kreia regarded him with a sightless stare. "You think that will stop them?"

He glared at her for a moment, then rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. The ghost of a sneer flitted over Kreia's lips in response. If Atton saw, he ignored it, instead turning so that he was facing both women at once. "Look, I've got us on course for the nearest populated planet - Telos, by the way, not that we have much choice with the  _Harbinger_ 's star charts - but it's going to be a little bit before we get there. And between assassin droids, a  _Sith Lord_ , and being target practice for a Republic warship, I think I deserve a few answers." He glowered at both of them. "So one of you tell me what's going on."

Meetra shook her head. "I don't know any more than you do."

"You were on the  _Harbinger_ before the crew decided to play good samaritan with a Sith ship."

"I don't remember that; HK-50 made sure of it," Meetra reminded him. "All I know is that the Republic wanted me on Telos."

"They sought you." Meetra and Atton both turned to Kreia, confusion written in their expressions. Her blind eyes were fixed on the former.

"How do you know that?" Meetra asked.

"Because I sought you as well." She raised a hand to silence Meetra's questions. "You were difficult to find, but once I learned you were aboard the vessel, it was easy enough to board and rescue you. As you said, that infernal machine had seen to it." Her lips thinned as she continued down the road of memory. "I... failed to note that the Sith were already on board the  _Harbinger_. They fired upon us as we made the jump to hyperspace. Truthfully, I do not know how we arrived at Per-"

T3 rolled in between them, chirping and whistling loud enough to create a slight distortion in his vocabulator. Kreia glared down at the little droid, mouth pursing at the interruption. "Silence, droid. We are having a conversation." He squawked back at her indignantly, ending with a rude buzz.

"Talking trash compactor's overdue for a memory wipe," Atton said, but he rubbed his jaw to hide a smile.

"He said... he brought the ship to Peragus," Meetra translated, T3's agitation and her own increasing fuzziness made it difficult to catch every word, but she was beginning to puzzle out their meaning. She chose to leave his last remark to Kreia untranslated. "He repaired enough damage to keep the ship together until we reached the facility."

" _Right_ ," Atton scoffed. "Is it going to claim credit for saving our skins in the hangar, too?" He received the same rude buzz. "Yeah, yeah. I'll believe it when I see it."

"How we got there is less important than why the Sith followed." Meetra looked to Kreia. "I'm guessing you know."

"Because you are the last of the Jedi. Once you are dead, they will have won."

The following silence settled over the room like a sodden blanket. Meetra stared at Kreia without seeing her, chest tightening at the implications of the old woman's statement. "That - that's not possible."

"The Civil War destroyed them," Kreia said, as if describing the weather. "By the war's end, many had fallen in battle... and more were seduced by Revan's teachings."

Meetra recalled Atton's mention of Revan going to war with the Jedi, but she shook her head. A memory flashed before her - a tall woman laughing with her face upturned toward a brilliant blue sky, violet eyes and olive skin almost glowing, long dark wind-whipped hair streaming out behind her. The idea that she could lead a war on her own people was something Meetra couldn't, and didn't want to, fathom - and so she shied away from it. "There must be someone, anyone else, alive."

"She's right," Atton said softly. His gaze was downcast and he refused to meet her eyes. "Before Revan killed him, Malak bombed the Jedi academy on Dantooine. I... I don't know if there were any survivors."

"Even before then, many surviving Jedi blamed the Council for the Civil War," Kreia chimed in. "Most saw it as punishment for their inaction during the Mandalorian Wars. The Temple on Coruscant still stands, but it is empty, and the waters in the Room of a Thousand Fountains are still, in reverence to those who have fallen..." She gave Meetra a pointed look. "And those who were lost."

"I was never lost," Meetra said, anger chilling her voice. She wasn't sure who she was really angry at - Kreia and Atton for revealing the closest thing to family she'd ever known was essentially dust and memories? The Council for sending her away in the first place? The violet-eyed woman for leading her to ruin? Or perhaps herself for trusting a friend - but anger felt better than loss, so she clung to it like a life-preserver. "Regardless, the Sith are wasting their time. I am not a Jedi; I was once, but no longer."

"Do you think they will make that distinction?" The derision in Kreia's voice stung. "Do you think they will believe your claim and decide to let you live? They will kill you and leave your body to rot like the rest of the Jedi, and then they will swarm the galaxy. No system, no planet, no people will spared."

Meetra gritted her teeth, fighting against the outburst that clawed in her chest. The Council had exiled her - by their own command, Sith machinations were no longer her problem. Yet, here she was again, cleaning up a mess of someone else's making, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't at least try. "How do we stop them?"

Atton cleared his throat and took a half-step back. "What's with all this 'we' stuff?" He shrugged a little sheepishly when Meetra turned to him. "What? Sith are after you, not me. I didn't sign on to fight in a Jedi war."

"I'm sure we'll manage," Kreia said dryly, earning herself another eye roll, then turned back to Meetra. "As we are, it is impossible. You will need weapons -" Her eyes flicked to Meetra's waist, the implication clear "- allies, and... a teacher." Meetra grimaced at the last, but nodded. Her nascent reconnection with the Force made her feel like a padawan again, and she had left the Academy to fight in the Mandalorian Wars before finishing her formal training to begin with. Kreia shook her head. "I fear it still may not be enough."

"But we have to try," Meetra said, weariness and acceptance settling on her shoulders like a heavy cloak. "If we don't, that's worse than failing."

"The words of a Jedi - and a fool." Meetra blinked, startled by the change in the old woman's attitude. Kreia waved her remaining hand at Meetra dismissively. "You have much to learn, but we have spoken of this enough for now -" She pulled her left arm against her stomach "- and my wound pains me. I will retire to the crew quarters - seek me there if you have more questions." Kreia hesitated, as if there were an action she was unsure she should perform, then turned and stepped out into the corridor.

"Aw, going so soon?" Atton called after her, evidently unable to resist a last dig at the old woman. "My eyes were just getting heavy."

"And in private, we will be free of the opinions of imbeciles," Kreia retorted as she vanished around the corner.

He chuckled, pleased at having gotten under her skin, but his amusement faded when he looked back to Meetra. "Gray's not really a good look for you." Meetra frowned at him and then pulled a lock of hair in front of her face, inspecting the strands. He laughed and shook his head. "I meant your face. How do you feel?"

"I'm - I'm fine," Meetra protested, pushing herself away from the chair. She immediately grabbed for it again when she wobbled, her knee threatening to buckle.

"Yeeeaah, no." Atton shook his head, smirking at her bravado. "You Jedi are bad liars." He pointed down at T3. "Ask the tin can if this boat has a medbay."

" _He_ can understand  _you_."

T3 grumbled at Atton, but he rolled out into the corridor, pausing when they didn't follow right away. Atton crossed back to the co-pilot's chair and retrieved Meetra's staff, returning it to her without a word. T3 led them back into the main hold, taking the port-side hallway this time and making a right at the intersection. He rolled up to the door of a small room and whistled twice, using his scomp link to cycle the hatch. Inside was a sparse, but functional medbay, a single bed at its center. Meetra leaned her staff against the door frame, then limped over to the bed and sat on the edge. Dark patches were beginning to encroach on the edges of her vision and she felt her exhaustion deep in her bones.

Atton rummaged through the cabinets, coming up with a bottle of disinfectant, a few cloths, a stack of bandages, an injector, and a pair of shears. He brought it all back to the bed and laid everything out next to her, keeping the injector in hand. He waved it in front of her. "Something stronger than a medpac?" She nodded and pushed up the sleeve on her uninjured arm, flinching a little when he pressed the needle into her skin. The drug worked quickly, the pain in her shoulder fading to a dull throb. He swapped the injector for the shears and carefully snipped through the fabric around her shoulder, helping her slide the extra fabric off her arm.

"Any idea why she thinks the Sith are so intent on taking out a lone Jedi?" He asked as he dampened a cloth with the disinfectant, answering Meetra's glare with a quick grin. "Fine, an ex-Jedi. This'll probably sting." It did and she sucked in a breath through her teeth, but kept still as he cleaned the caked blood from her skin.

"I don't know. Half of what she says doesn't make sense, even to me." Cleansed of gore, the wound didn't look as bad as it felt and Atton set about dressing it, folding a few bandages against her shoulder before wrapping more around it. Meetra noted his quick and gentle efficiency; he was used to dressing wounds. His hands were warm where they brushed her skin, the tips of his fingers slightly calloused. "I'm starting to think she's being cryptic for the fun of it."

"Well, just so you Jedi know, the whole 'cryptic routine' isn't mysterious -" He paused in dressing the blaster burn on her arm to wave his arms as he said the last word "- it's just irritating. If you really can see the future, you should be placing bets at the swoop races."

"To know the future, one must know yourself."

Atton glared at her. "See, that right there. 'Jedi talk.' You and her should start up your own little Academy."

"To teach, one must be willing to learn." She laughed when he threw up his hands.

"Just my luck. Last Jedi in the galaxy, and I get the comedian who runs around in her underwear," Atton groused, but one side of his mouth curved up in a lopsided smile. "Far be it from me to complain, though. You're all done. At least you won't bleed to death now." He cleared everything from the bed and then dropped onto it next to her, his shoulder brushing hers. "So... what happened?"

She frowned, realization dawning when his eyes flicked down to her waist and back up. "To what?"

"C'mon," he said, calling her bluff. "A lightsaber would have been just the littlest bit helpful back there - so... where's yours?"

Anxiety turned Meetra's stomach and tightened her chest, though she wasn't entirely sure why. Even after a decade, the indignity and embarrassment still lingered. "It was... taken from me. By the Council."

"They could do that?" Atton lifted an eyebrow when she nodded. "I thought you guys were married to your lightsabers. Was it single hilt or double-bladed? Wasn't red, right?"

His interest made her uncomfortable, though again, she couldn't say why. "No, it was cyan - blue, like the oceans of Manaan - and double-bladed."

"I heard a lot of Jedi used double-bladed sabers during the Mandalorian Wars." Meetra glanced sideways at him, but Atton didn't seem to be digging maliciously. "It's a more aggressive blade, right? More damage per swing." He mimed striking with a lightsaber.

Meetra suddenly felt sick, memories flickering at the edges of her consciousness. Dxun. Serroco. Malachor V. She stood quickly, managing to keep her balance while favoring her knee. "I - I think I should check on Kreia."

Atton looked surprised, but then he rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, seeming to realize that he'd upset her. He stood and scooped up the remaining bandages and disinfectant, along with another injector, and pressed them into Meetra's hands. "Not that I really give a damn or anything, but you might try getting her to take care of that hand of hers. I would, but spending time in her presence is bad for my health."

Meetra nodded, balancing the supplies in one arm and scooped up her staff with her free hand. T3, sitting vigil at the medbay door, chirped for her to follow him back out into the corridor, guiding her to the port-side bunks. He refused to go in with her, warbling a vague excuse before rolling back the way they'd come. Meetra entered the dormitory and found Kreia at the far end, the old woman kneeling on the floor and deep in meditation. She stood as Meetra approached. "So, you do have questions."

"Actually, I brought you some things to help with your hand." Meetra spread everything on one of the bunks, but didn't offer to help Kreia. She got the sense that it would just insult her. "But... yes, I did want to ask about something. I... I felt it when you lost your hand. It was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life."

Kreia seemed unsurprised by the revelation. "Yes, and I fear if my injuries had been more... extreme, your reaction would have followed accordingly."

"You mean it could have been fatal - if you'd died, I would have, too."

"Possibly. I feel... something between us, a bond tying us to one another." Kreia frowned, her hand lifting to touch one of the long grey braids hanging down from beneath the hood of her robe. "We should take steps to ensure our minds are prepared to shield each other from pain the next time we find ourselves in battle. We will hardly be any use to each if a stubbed toe incapacitates us both."

"How could a bond like that be formed?"

"I... do not know," Kreia admitted. "I  _do_ know that it is strong and the roots run deep. It will not be easy to break."

Meetra chewed her lip, digesting the information. Being connected to each other in such a way... it was a level of intimacy she wasn't sure she was comfortable with. She put the issue to the back of her mind, choosing instead to ask the old woman about the other issue plaguing her thoughts. "On Peragus... I felt the Force again. For the first time in ten years, I called and it answered, but... it's weaker than it was before."

Kreia nodded, again unfazed by Meetra's revelations. "I theorize that the Jedi Council failed to cut you off from the Force when they handed down your exile. It seems the damage they did was not as permanent as they hoped."

"Wait, you think the Council did this to me?"

"Do you believe you lost your connection to the Force by chance?" Kreia chuckled. "No, you are not the first exile to be severed by the Council. They merely chose to hide the truth of the sentencing."

Meetra's heart raced, but she still had trouble imagining the Jedi would do what Kreia was accusing them of. Granted, there were a few on the Council who would have delighted in inflicting such a sentence - especially on her - but it seemed too cruel for the rest. "Is there a way to reverse it?"

"Our... 'link' may have already begun the process." Kreia paused, lost in thought for a moment. "The fact that you are able to touch the Force again at all means there is hope. I may be able to train to reach your full potential again."

"Thank you. Truly."

Kreia nodded, then slowly lowered herself back to the floor. "I appreciate the supplies - and the concern. However, I would request solitude until we reach Telos." She cast a baleful glance past Meetra, in the vague direction of navigation. "You should observe that fool in the cockpit. I do not want him to deviate from Telos."

Meetra frowned. "He has a name, Kreia."

The old woman scoffed. "I do not trust him, and neither should you. Men such as he serve themselves first and others not at all."

Meetra lifted a hand to her shoulder absently, recalling the care Atton had taken while cleaning and dressing her wounds. "I don't think you know him as well as you believe."

Kreia sniffed, managing to look down her nose at Meetra while still kneeling, "I will not start an argument over one so undeserving." Then she closed her eyes, indicating the conversation was over. Meetra backed out of the dormitory and wandered into the main hold, sinking down onto one of the couches. The sounds of the ship echoed around her - the soft hum of the engine interspersed with beeps or trills from nearby consoles. It was soothing, in a strange way, and Meetra allowed herself to relax. The road ahead was still unknown and that worried her, but for now, here in the slipstream of hyperspace, they were safe. For now, that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, for anyone waiting on this chapter, I apologize for the length of time between posting. This one gave me a little trouble, but it's out now, and, as a bit of a bonus, it's a bit longer than usual!


	15. Interlude I - So, What's Your Story?

In the silence, the _Ebon Hawk_ was large and haunted. Avoiding the portside dormitory, Meetra explored to the south. A turn in the corridor brought her to a large open space with a workbench at the far end and shelving against the outer wall - a garage, large enough to hold a swoop bike or a small airspeeder. Old oil stains dotted a section of the floor, evidence that a vehicle had once inhabited the space, but now it was as empty as the rest of the ship. Meetra hurried through, the echo of her boots and staff an intrusion on the stillness.

The corridor curved around to another dormitory, this one free of irascible old women. Meetra leaned her staff against a wall and sank down on one of the lower bunks. The mattress groaned under her weight but felt serviceable enough. She debated lying down, but the idea of trying to sleep in the shredded and filthy mining uniform made her want to crawl out of her skin. Levering herself back to her feet, Meetra rummaged through the footlockers at the ends of each bunk, coming up with a cream tunic, off-white pants, and soft brown leather boots. Meetra shucked off the uniform and pulled the new garments on, finding them a surprisingly close fit. They had a faint smell about them - something familiar, but too fleeting for her to identify. She retreated to the bunk and closed her eyes, but sleep remained out of reach. After a few minutes, she gave up and hobbled back out to the main hold.

She briefly fiddled with the circular console in the center of the hold, but most of its functions were inaccessible, locked behind a voiceprint. A status report for each of the ship’s functions was available, as well as a log of the repairs performed on Peragus, but most of it went over her head. T3 would be able to make more sense of it, but the little astromech had vanished into the bowels of the freighter with a purpose, and Meetra was loath to track him down and disturb him for something so small. The idea of resuming her chat with Kreia was no more enticing, and so she turned north to the cockpit.

Atton was back in the pilot’s seat, focus locked on the readout from the _Ebon Hawk_ ’s myriad consoles. He’d removed his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair, exposing the beige shirt underneath - he looked smaller without it. He glanced up at the sound of her footsteps and his eyes swept her frame as he took in her new outfit. “Nice threads. Not really the current style, but I’m a fan.”

“Oh, thank goodness. My entire self-image hinges on your approval of my fashion choice.” He chuckled, gaze following her as she crossed the cockpit to the co-pilot’s chair. Meetra let herself down gingerly and stretched her leg out. “I thought you’d be more disappointed, given your clear preference in our first meeting.”

“I take it back; they’re hideous.” Atton smiled when she laughed, but it faded as he got a good look at her face. A faint tightness at the corners of her eyes and mouth hinted at suppressed pain and the heavy bags beneath her eyes spoke of a deep weariness. “You should get some rest. If we get in another scrape with the Sith, you might not be so lucky.”

“Can’t sleep,” Meetra said and shrugged her good shoulder. “It’s too quiet. Everytime I move it feels like I’m walking over a grave.”

“Well, you’re free to hang around. Your ship, your call.” Atton looked back at the consoles, gaze panning across the screens; though, as the _Ebon Hawk_ was essentially on auto-pilot, it wasn’t clear what he was looking for. “I’m not gonna promise good conversation, though.” It wasn’t an apology for his earlier remarks, not in so many words, but she was getting better at seeing through the facade.

“How long until we reach Telos?”

“Few hours still.” He stretched, the outline of his shoulders shifting beneath the shirt, and leaned back in the chair, arms folded behind his head. “Just in time for happy hour at the cantina.”

“At least your priorities are straight.”

“You saying you _don’t_ need a drink after blowing up a planet?” Meetra’s smile slipped and Atton bit the inside of his cheek. “A dead planet, I mean. That’s why they were mining the field. Because, you know… dead planet.” He changed tack. “Uh, so how’s Her Majesty?”

“Cryptic,” Meetra said flatly. Atton caught her grimace from the corner of his eye and grinned. She returned it, then her face softened. “You really should go easy on her, though. She’s hiding it well, but I can’t imagine the agony she must be in.”

“She’s good at that. Hiding, I mean. Must be a Jedi thing.”

Meetra ignored the barb. “I don’t know if she _is_ a Jedi. At least, not like any I’ve ever known.” Well, almost any. Kreia would probably have gotten along with Revan. Meetra sighed and pulled a hand through her hair, tucking the longer strands behind her ears. Sometimes she missed her braid. “I can’t quite figure her out.”

“How is that not like a Jedi?” This time she tossed him a sideways glare. Atton smirked and ruffled his own hair, the longer bit on top falling over one of his eyes. It made him look disarmingly boyish, Meetra decided, but she wasn’t sure if it was purely aesthetic or part of the act. Either way, she was certain he knew the effect it had. “Fine, fine. I’ll knock it off - if she dials back the attitude.”

“... I’ll work on it.”

They lapsed into a companionable silence, a rarity for Meetra in the previous decade. Her chair wasn’t exactly comfortable or designed for sleep, but between the soft chirps from the consoles, the hypnotic hyperspace glow, and the presence of an amicable (if not overly friendly) person, she found her eyes growing heavy. She settled back into her seat and closed her eyes.

“You know, something’s been bugging me.” Well, he’d said he wouldn’t promise _good_ conversation, not _no_ conversation. Meetra cracked an eye and glanced over at Atton. His attention was focused on the ceiling of the cockpit, making her unsure if he’d noticed her falling asleep. “I get why you were on the _Harbinger._ Republic summons and all that druk. My question is what’s a Jedi - ex-Jedi, I mean - doing on the Outer Rim?”

“It’s not so strange - there’s an academy on Dantooine.”

“Er, there _was._ ” Atton’s tone was gentle, but the words still stung. The Jedi may have turned their backs on her, but the idea of going back to the Academy or the temple on Coruscant with no one there to turn her away… Meetra pushed the thought down, tucking it away with her fear and guilt as Atton continued. “I’m not talking about before the Jedi war; I mean _now_.”

“I… traveled.” She fidgeted, fingers twining around each other in loose spirals. A quiet voice, not her own, echoed a rebuke from the depths of her memory, and she forced her hands to be still. “I’d never gone further out on the Rim than Dantooine, and after you see Coruscant half a dozen times it loses a little of the impact. I wanted to see somewhere - something - new. So, I did.”

He was staring at her now, brow furrowed. “That’s it?”

“Does there need to be more?”

“Well, no, I guess not.” Atton shifted in his seat, every movement outlined beneath the beige fabric. “Just thought it’d be more, I don’t know, scandalous.” And so it was, but Meetra wasn’t sure she trusted him with the full story, or if she was even ready to share it. “You know, in light of the whole Revan and Malak thing.”

“I left the Order, “ Meetra said. A half-truth - well, maybe a quarter-truth, if she were being honest. “I didn’t fall - if that _is_ what happened to Revan and Malak.” She surprised herself with her choice of words. The idea of Revan falling to the Dark Side - of the beautiful, strong, kind friend Meetra had loved fiercely turning against everything they believed in - was so impossible that her mind rejected it outright. No, there was more to Revan’s story, and as soon as she found a way to escape the Sith’s pursuit, she would get to the truth of it.

Atton, watching her closer than he hoped she knew, caught the emotion flickering across Meetra’s face - like fireflies, there and gone before you could be sure it had been there at all. She had a good poker face - hell, a good face in general, and more besides - but seeing past someone’s facade was practically a survival skill of his. There was a reflection of physical pain, of course, but a deeper hurt lurked beneath the surface, mingled with a weariness that went further than the events of the past few hours. Like everyone else on the ship, she had secrets.

“What about you?” She was looking at him now, face bathed in the blue glow of the hyperspace tunnel. The ethereal halo softened her features further, sculpting vulnerability in the curve of her cheek and the swell of her lips.

“What do you mean?” To his credit, his voice didn’t betray him.

“How did you end up in that cell, really?”

“Told you. Security overreacted, blew things out of proportion. Probably had a quota to fill.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s what happened.”

“I’m sure it’s a version.” The corner of Meetra’s mouth curved up and amusement joined the fatigue and pain, smoothing the tightness at her jaw and eyes. A smile like that told Atton that she was used to using it to get what she wanted. And who was he to deny her?

“I… do a lot of import - export.” She tilted her head, the question written in the movement. “Peragus is - _was_ \- one of my stops. A few of the miners were clients and I caught a ride to the station to make a delivery. Security got wind and objected to the… _product_ , and the rest you know.” He waved a hand. “Simple misunderstanding.”

Meetra laughed, a chuckle that started low in her chest and bubbled out of her mouth. “You’re a smuggler!’

Atton frowned and rolled his eyes. “Well, you don’t have to say it like that.”

“No, no, I’m sorry.” Meetra lifted a placating hand as her giggles subsided. “I didn’t mean it to sound negative. It just explains a lot.”

“Really? I thought Jedi were paragons of order and justice.”

The laughter froze on her face and died in her eyes. “They were.” For just a second, grief replaced mirth - a flash in the dark and then gone again. Her smile was back in place, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I, however, think it makes you a highly valuable ally.”

“Bold of you to assume.”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t say that’s new for me.” She didn’t elaborate and Atton didn’t push. Meetra leaned back in her chair again, eyes half-lidded as she stared down the blue corridor ahead of them. “I didn’t thank you before, in the medbay.”

“You’re welcome.”

The silence flooded in again, but as before, it wasn’t unpleasant. There was something serene in it, Atton decided; a sense of safety born from the danger they’d survived. He turned to say something to Meetra, to make a joke that would pull another rumbling laugh from her, but her eyes were shut, chest rising and falling in a slow steady rhythm. Her hair had slipped from its place behind her ears, falling across her cheekbones in soft lazy waves.

Atton sank back into his chair and closed his own eyes, but he didn’t sleep. There were only a few hours left before they reached Telos, and whatever this feeling was, this delicate tranquility that seemed somehow born of their shared presence, he didn’t want to waste a second of it.


	16. "Warm" Welcome

“I gotta say, if this is going to be a pattern, I almost wish I’d stayed on Peragus.”

Meetra glared at Atton through the fields of their force cages, but she had to concede his point. The instant the _Ebon Hawk_ had touched down in the Citadel Station’s hangar, Telosian security officers swarmed the ship. Led by the taciturn Lieutenant Dol Grenn, a man who exuded military background like a strong cologne, the officers swept the trio through the station to the TSF’s main office and imprisoned them in force cages. Grenn confiscated their equipment, informed them of the _Ebon Hawk_ and T3’s impoundment, accused them (albeit diplomatically) of destroying the Peragus mining facility, and then he left with the promise of proper lodgings. That had been three hours ago.

All things considered, Meetra had experienced worse welcomes, but it didn’t exactly leave them with a lot of options.

Atton leaned against the flat panel at the back of his force cage and slid down to sit on the floor, legs stretched out in front of him, knees bent and boots flat on the ground, and closed his eyes. With any luck, his nonstop complaining from the hangar to the security station had exhausted his supply of hot air. Meetra glanced to her other side, but Kreia had long since settled into a meditative pose on the floor of her own force cage and it was doubtful she would be good conversation anyway. Meetra lowered herself to the floor and mimicked Kreia’s posture. Her knee creaked under the pressure, but the few hours of rest on the _Ebon Hawk_ had made a marked improvement; it was almost worth the crick in her neck from sleeping in the co-pilot’s chair. Meetra closed her eyes, but clearing her mind was difficult. She was out of practice and meditation had never been a strong suit for her, to the frustration of several of her teachers.

“Didn’t get enough sleep on the ride over?” Meetra opened her eyes and found Atton watching her, lids half open and mouth curved up in a crooked smirk. “You snore, by the way.”

“I do no - ” Meetra broke off and rolled her eyes as his grin stretched into a full smile. “Hilarious.”

“Aw, don’t be like that. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,”

“Are you twelve?”

“Geez, cranky. Guess you do need more sleep.” He closed his eyes and turned his face away before she could retort, but it was more a dismissal of the conversation than an indication he was tired. And if he felt anything like she did, he must be exhausted. After a moment, he spoke again, eyes still shut. “You ever been to Telos?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never done well in crowds; Telos was heavily populated, so…” Meetra shrugged, good shoulder rising higher than the other. The excuse was mostly the truth, but her Exile status made Telos off-limits regardless. The Jedi had built an agricultural compound on the planet, staffed by failed padawans, and even there she would have been less than welcome. “But that was… before.” Before Alek - no, _Malak_ \- devastated the planet’s surface while she’d been meandering around the furthest reaches of civilized space.

“Where were you before the _Harbinger_?”

The abrupt subject change threatened to give her mental whiplash, but Meetra could see it for what it was: a combination of boredom and anxiety. Atton might be familiar with detainment, but he wasn’t comfortable with it. “Like I said before, I traveled a lot. Never stayed in one place long.” She counted off planets on her fingers as she spoke them aloud. “Spent a few months on Tatooine - wouldn’t recommend, unless having sand in literally every crevasse does it for you. Kamino’s nice, but the storms are too frequent and unpredictable. Went to Belsavis for a few we-”

“ _Belsavis_?” Atton repeated. He was looking at her now, brows and mouth drawn down with confusion. “Why the hell would you go there - to play in the snow?” He shuddered, as if the thought alone summoned the icy planet’s chill. “Tatooine’s backwater, but at least there’s people on it.”

His reaction pulled a laugh from her. “There _were_ people on Belsavis. A Republic outpost - a science project really. Trying to find a way harness the planet’s geothermal energy efficiently enough to power a settlement.” Meetra’s smile slipped as she thought of Kyne - and vanished entirely when Jazala and Dekar came to mind. “I needed a place to stay. They needed another free pair of hands.”

Atton’s expression was still dubious. “Running from a Sith Lord, crawling through fuel lines, flying through a volatile asteroid field, and now I find out you willingly set foot on that frozen wasteland - not exactly reassuring vis á vis you not being crazy.”

“Hey, I got us off Peragus. Crazy can’t be all bad.”

He grinned. “ _You_ did, huh? I must have taken a hit to the head then, ‘cause I seem to recall helping at least a little bit.”

Meetra raised a hand, index finger and thumb held only an inch or so apart. “A _very_ little bit.”

Atton clutched the front of his shirt dramatically. “Cut me to the quick, Jedi. Here I thought I had your respect, but I’m just a pre-”

“Silence.” Kreia’s voice was quiet, but commanding, and Atton fell silent, glaring over Meetra’s shoulder. She turned to find Kreia on her feet, sightless eyes locked on the door across the room. Meetra struggled to her feet, heard Atton do the same. Kreia’s milky gaze flicked to her briefly and then back to the door. “Someone comes.”

“‘Bout time.” Atton stretched, one arm pulled high over his head. “Remind me to file a hell of complaint with the TSF; this has gotta be against at least one of the Republic’s humanitarian laws.”

The holding door shivered and then slid open to admit a young man in TSF garb. He strolled over to the command console for the force cages, a swagger in his step and blaster held loosely at his side, and leaned against the edge, turning to face Meetra. The officer’s mouth twisted in a sneer as he looked her up and down. “ _This_ is the ‘last of the Jedi?’” He shook his head, shoulders shaking with a silent chuckle. “I’m almost disappointed.”

Meetra’s heart hammered a staccato rhythm against her sternum, but she kept her face carefully blank. She felt rather than saw Atton and Kreia tense in their cells, but she didn’t let her focus waver. “I think you’re confused. There are no Jedi here.” She took a breath, forced herself to relax. “Did Grenn send you to escort us?”

The man’s smirk widened and he gestured toward his face. “Playing dumb doesn’t suit you. Too much wisdom behind the eyes.” He straightened, one hand drifting back to rest on the console. “Well, Jedi or no - regardless of what you want to call yourself - there is no confusion.” He gestured toward her with the blaster. “You’re the one I’ve pledged to kill.”

“Care to tell me who ordered my death?”

Atton answered instead. “The Exchange.”

The assassin tipped his head in assent. “Who else? Jedi are worth quite a bit of money to the Exchange - dead or alive. I think you can understand my eagerness.”

“What I _can’t_ understand is why they’d send a two-bit pistol jockey like you.” Atton’s voice was calm, his tone nearly as playful as it had been during their earlier conversation, but Meetra sensed the hard edge under the surface. “Their talent recruitment must be slipping. I mean, is the safety even off on that thing?”

To the bounty hunter’s credit, he didn’t take the bait and glance down at the blaster. However, his focus, and the weapon by extension, shifted to Atton, signaling the insult had gotten under his skin. “What do you know? My skills are far beyond the Exchange; if it weren’t for the price on her head, I wouldn’t be here.”

“If they expected someone to succeed, they’d have hired a Mandalorian.” Atton smirked. “Not some cheap Nar Shaddaa back-alley mercenary scum.”

“A Mandalorian wouldn’t have the brain capacity to get further than the hangar,” the bounty hunter snapped. He was visibly agitated now, blaster waving wildly with every punctuation. “A Mandalorian couldn’t have been subtle enough to infiltrate the station, take the identity of a TSF officer, and get close enough to - “

“Overload the cages’ fields and make it look like tragic negligence?” Meetra glanced sideways at Atton. Judging from the disguised bounty hunter’s slack-jawed expression, Atton’s prediction was dead on. More unnerving to her was how easily he’d come to it. “You’re right. A Mandalorian would have had the guts, the honor, to face us in combat. Hell, you probably can’t even fight _me_.”

“While overloading the cages _had_ occurred to me, at least one of you is wanted alive.” The man shifted back to Meetra. “However, even if I bring them a corpse, I still get the bounty. So, by all means, continue allowing him to insult me.”

“My companions tend to do as they please,” Meetra said, one shoulder lifting in a helpless shrug. “Our imminent doom aside, how do you expect to get away with this? We’re in the middle of the TSF station - you can’t exactly walk out with me. Or my corpse, for that matter.”

“Fortunately, a power surge seems to have temporarily knocked out the cameras.” Now that he believed himself back in control, the bounty hunter’s smugness came back in full force. “So there will be no witnesses to the escape attempt that forced me to kill your friends. Grenn will have me escort you to the safe house, but I’ll arrange for a little detour to the hanger first, and we’ll be on Nar Shaddaa before he realizes we never made it.”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything planned out.”

He shrugged. “It was less difficult than you might imagine. Grenn is so preoccupied with the station’s little black market problem these days, so his attention to detail regarding his officers has been a little lax.” He gestured to the console with his free hand. “Now, I’m going to power down the fields. Do me a favor and hold still while I kill the other two. Remember: I don’t _need_ you alive.”

“I won’t let you hurt them.” It was strange how easily the quiet authority crept into her voice. A decade’s worth of disuse, and yet it slid into place as if she still had the Order’s power at her back. “I don’t want to fight you, but I’m not going anywhere.”

He shrugged. “You’ll not hear me complain, ‘Jedi.’ Frankly, it’ll be easier for me to get you off the station dead. I’ll ask you to put forth some effort, though; Grenn will need a show if he’s to believe you tried to escape.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want him pointing out how pathetic you are for attacking an injured woman,” Atton interjected. Meetra gave him side-eye for the comment, but he studiously ignored her.

The bounty hunter rounded on Atton again, fury flashing in his dark eyes. “You’ve goaded me twice; a third time will not go without response. Consider your name on the first round.” The fingers of his free hand danced over the console’s surface, entering in the sequence to power down the force fields. “Now, please, try to make it look good. My skills are more than a match for an old woman, a fool, and a broken Jedi, but that’s no excuse.”

The fields powered down, the bounty hunter leveled the blaster at Atton, and Meetra lunged across the room, the Force quickening her steps. Unlike on Peragus, when she’d had to reach and pull the Force to her in order use her abilities, when she had woken up on approach to Telos, it had stayed with her; no longer at the edge of her thoughts, but intertwining with them, soft and insistent. The sensation was still far weaker than before Malachor, but no longer felt tenuous.

She was on the man almost before he realized she had moved. He half-turned toward her, blaster swinging around, but she slammed into him, momentum carrying them across the room to collide against the far wall. The impact knocked the weapon out of his grip as Meetra pushed him back, forearm pressed against his windpipe. The bounty hunter flailed, eyes wild, and swung a desperate punch at her head, but a quick gesture with her free hand and his arm was forced back against the wall. Meetra leaned close, her words escaping in a low snarl. “ _I am_ not _broken._ ”

Panicked, the bounty hunter struck out with his unhindered arm, clipping Meetra’s injured shoulder when she ducked out of the way. The blow elicited a startled cry of pain and she reacted instinctively, driving her fist into his left side. A voice, old in both speaker and memory, briefly flickered in her thoughts - _Jedi do not brawl in the streets!_ \- but she willed it away with another strike to his diaphragm. The man’s breath left him in a rush, but, to his credit, he kept his head. Shifting his weight onto one foot, he lifted the other and drove his knee into Meetra’s sternum and shoved her away.

Meetra’s feet went out from under her and she hit the floor hard, the back of her head bouncing against the tiles. White spots popped across her vision and there was a ringing in her ears, almost drowning out the sudden whine of blaster fire. When her vision cleared, she found Atton leaning over her, one hand held out. In the other, the bounty hunter’s weapon. Meetra took his hand robotically and allowed him to haul her to her feet. His voice was muffled, the tinny ringing in her ears like a layer of cotton. “You alright?”

She nodded, though in truth it still felt like the world was slightly off its axis, and he released her hand. Meetra glanced around to get her bearings, noting that Kreia still remained in her powered-down force cage, mouth curved up in a small smirk, and then she looked down and took a quick step back. The bounty hunter lay at her feet, his eyes staring sightlessly upward and a neat blaster wound in the middle of his forehead. Blood began to pool beneath his head, the off-white tiles quickly stained a dark crimson.

Boots thundered out in the hallway and Grenn rushed in, flanked by two armed officers. Both trained their weapons on Atton immediately and Grenn motioned toward the weapon in his hand. “Drop it, son.”

Atton complied immediately, putting the blaster on the floor and kicking it across to one of the officers, a human woman, for good measure. Meetra took advantage of the momentary distraction to put herself between Atton and their line of fire, but neither officer really seemed to care so long as their weapons had a target. The female officer handed the weapon to Grenn as he surveyed the scene. “Which one of you wants to tell me what the hell happened here?”

“Are you serious, sir?!” the other officer (also human, but male) asked. “We caught them red-handed! That bastard killed one of us!” He advanced toward Atton, and Meetra shifted to keep herself between them.

“Officer, stand down.” Grenn’s voice was quiet, but the stern rumble brooked no argument.

“C’mon, Lieutenant!” There was grief in the officer’s eyes, though the fury nearly overpowered it. He was so focused on Atton Meetra wasn’t sure he was even aware of her presence. “Batu is dead becau-”

“This isn’t Batu Rem.” Every head in the room swiveled to the female officer where she knelt next to the bounty hunter’s body. “I don’t know _who_ this is, but it’s not Batu.”

With the officer’s ire routed, Meetra stepped forward and gently pushed his rifle down. He allowed the motion, too focused on the body and his partner’s revelation to really react. Grenn, however, was still looking to Meetra. She gestured at the dead man. “He said he was a bounty hunter for the Exchange. He turned off the cages so it would look like he was forced to kill us during an escape.”

The female officer frowned. “Why would the Exchange want to kill you?”

“They… mistakenly believed we had information about the location of a Jedi.” Grenn held her gaze. There was suspicion in his eyes; he knew she was lying, but chose not to comment on it. “He was sent to find out what we knew and make sure no one else would.”

There was a brief clamor outside the room and a second male TSF officer, this one with a shock of blonde hair, stumbled in, datapad in hand. “Sir, the cameras -” He stopped dead at the sight of the bounty hunter’s corpse, his already wide eyes growing wider.

Grenn gestured impatiently. “Out with it.”

“The, uh, the cameras were - they were sabotaged, sir.” The blond officer held out the datapad. “The last person to access them was Batu Rem, but… he’s supposed to be on leave. He shouldn’t be back for another week.”

“Send a message to his family, verify he’s still with them,” Grenn ordered. “And send a copy of your report to Lieutenant Yima. I need her up to speed as soon as possible.” The officer saluted and vanished back out into the hallway. Grenn turned back to the two officers still in the room, gesturing first to the woman. “Letheis, stay with the body. I’ll send a medic up here to collect it and we’ll figure out who he was.” His gaze shifted to the male officer. “Valenic, you’re with me. We’re moving them to the safe house now.”

Behind Meetra, Atton crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “You know, it’s not that I don’t have faith in the TSF’s protection because an Exchange assassin managed to sneak in right under your nose, but… no, wait, that _is_ it, actually.”

“Believe me, this will be thoroughly investigated,” Grenn said. “In the meantime, you three will be put up in an apartment in the Residential Module: one way in, one way out. And I’ll personally clear any visitors. This won’t happen again.”

“It should not have happened in the first place.” Kreia’s tone was light, almost offhand, but her sightless glare betrayed her annoyance. “I doubt any of us wish to wake to an assassin looming above our beds.”

“Thanks for that image,” Atton said sarcastically.

“There will be two officers outside your accommodations at all times; I’ll see to the assignments myself.” Grenn waved a hand, indicating the conversation was over. “We’ve wasted enough time. Yima’s team will need the room to work.”

Without a word, Kreia followed Grenn and Valenic out of the room. Meetra glanced back at Atton over her shoulder, and he tipped his head slightly, an unspoken sentiment in his eyes: _Your call_. She nodded once and he returned it, and together they trailed after Kreia and the TSF officers.

Grenn hustled them through the station as quickly as he had from the hangar, but he couldn’t exactly rush the shuttle between modules, and Meetra got her first good unobstructed look at Telos from the car’s windows. Most of the planet’s surface was dead, colored a lifeless dusty brown; the testament of the bombing ordered by her old friend during the civil war. Atton had told her a bit about it on approach, surmising that Malak had attacked the planet as preemptive measure in case the Jedi planned to use it as a staging ground. Specks of green dotting the nearer side of the planet - restoration zones enclosed in protective domes - and the thick white mass of the polar ice cap, also domed, were the only visible signs of life. The longer Meetra looked at Telos, the heavier the guilt and grief settled in her chest. The sheer loss of life reminded her of Serroco and Malachor, and she still struggled to accept someone once so dear to her was responsible. Perhaps if she’d spoken up, said something, anything, during those sixteen years… if she’d defied the Council and left her exile sooner… maybe she could have stopped her old friends.

The Residential Module was a blur at the pace Grenn set and the three quickly found themselves ensconced in a small apartment. Three beds were spaced out evenly against one wall, a desk and terminal at one end and a communications console at the other. The wall across from the beds was one long window; thankfully, the view faced out over the station rather than toward Telos. A small refresher was set into the wall at the very end of the window, the room’s contents hidden behind the closed door.

“You’ll remain here under house arrest until the Peragus investigation comes to a close.” Grenn gestured to either side of the apartment door. “As I said, two officers will keep watch, and no one gets to you without going through me first.”

Atton snorted. “Right. How about leaving us a blaster or two - even a vibroblade - just to be safe?”

Grenn didn’t dignify the snark with a response. “If you need anything, my men will have it sent it to you.”

How long are we going to be stuck here?” Meetra asked. The apartment was already starting to feel cramped with two other people. It reminded her of her early days in the barracks during the Mandalorian Wars.

The lieutenant hesitated for a moment, but something in her face softened his features. “Between you and me, our investigation is nearly wrapped up. We sent a ship to examine what’s left of the facility half a day ago, so it shouldn’t be much longer. Give us a day or so, and we should have our findings. Until then, get some rest.” He gestured to the communications console. “We’ll use the console to contact you if there are any problems or if there are any requests to speak to you.” He gave Meetra a loose salute and gestured to Valenic, and the two men left the apartment.

As soon as the door slid shut behind them, Atton turned to Meetra. “So, how do we get off this station?”

She blinked owlishly at him. “What?”

“It’s not safe here, and I don’t just mean the Exchange. The TSF digging into Peragus could bring the S-” He cut off, glancing around as if Sith assassins would spring from the minute shadows at their mere mention. When Meetra continued to frown at him, he threw up his hands, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Ah, druk; just forget i said anything. We’re trapped here, anyway.” He flopped onto the first bed and lay back, arms crossed behind his head. “At least it’s not a force cage.”

Meetra sighed, running a hand through her hair, and turned to Kreia. “Your thoughts?”

“The fool is not wrong.” Atton made a rude hand gesture in Kreia’s direction, but neither she or Meetra acknowledged it. “If we stay in one place too long, it will only benefit our pursuers.” She touched a braid, fingering one of the small gold ornaments that held it together. “However… we were brought here for a reason. What that it is, I am not sure.” Kreia released the braid and shook her head. “I need time to think on this. In the meantime, the Lieutenant had it right - we should rest.” She crossed to the bed furthest from Atton’s and sat on the floor at the end of it, folding her legs beneath her and closing her eyes.

“First sensible thing you’ve said, Your Highness,” Atton jeered. When Kreia continued to ignore him, he rolled his eyes and turned over on his side so that his back was to her. “Enjoy your little ‘mediation;’ I’ll be over here getting some actual sleep.”

Meetra hesitated, but she joined Kreia in a meditative pose on the floor. The few hours of sleep she’d gotten onboard the _Ebon Hawk_ had staved off her fatigue for a time, but it was beginning to catch up with her again; however, mediation would allow her body to rest while her mind remained active. And the amount she needed to process was staggering: her returning Force connection, the bond with Kreia, Alek and Revan’s impossible fall, and the latter’s return to the Light. So, while sleep was tempting, she closed her eyes and sought the less peaceful meditative trance.

Unfortunately, it seemed news of Meetra’s arrival had traveled quickly through the station. Over the next few hours, the three were awoken twice, first by one of the officers at the door announcing the arrival of Moza, a representative of an Ithorian herd responsible for the restoration attempt on Telos. He apologized for waking Meetra in the slow ambling way of his people, his large eyes squinting at her from either side of his flat, otherwise featureless face as he described the herd’s troubles with the local branch of the Czerka Corporation. Despite Kreia’s disapproval and Atton’s clear annoyance, Meetra agreed to meet with the herd’s leader as soon as they were released and sent Moza on his way. She and Kreia returned to meditation, while Atton, with a steady stream of grumbling, fell back into bed.

The second interruption came in the form of Jana Lorso, a representative of the Czerka Corporation. The ease with which she twisted her words and imbued them with silver-tongued insincerity caused Meetra’s hackles to rise and she refused Lorso’s request, ending the call quickly. Frustrated, both with Lorso’s slimy attitude and the frequent interruptions, Meetra gave up on mediation and opted for actual sleep. She slid into the empty middle bed, surrendering to unconsciousness seconds after her head hit the pillow.

Atton sat back down on the bed next to her, but before he lay down again, he caught Kreia watching Meetra, a strange tenderness on her face. He glanced back at Meetra and saw again the vulnerability he’d witnessed in the _Ebon Hawk_ ’s cockpit. “Hey, explain something to me.”

“I have not the time, nor the desire,” she said dismissively. “Go back to sleep.”

He rolled his eyes. “Indulge me. Jedi are supposed to be tough, right? I mean… she served in the Mandalorian Wars, right? I mean, she’s old enough… I think. She’s supposed to be… I don’t know, capable?”

“That would depend on one’s definition of the word,” Kreia pointed out. “I posit you a question: what is a Jedi without the Force?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Odd; you seem to be doing a remarkably good job of it.” She chuckled at her own joke before continuing. “A Jedi relies on the Force; more than most of them know. Even the greatest Jedi Knight becomes but a woman or a man when stripped of the Force. Take away the lightsaber, replace it with a blaster, and they become less - children.”

Atton glanced back at Meetra, resisted the urge to push the lock of hair across her cheek out of her face. “But she has the Force.”

“Not to the extent that she did.”

“I… I guess I didn’t realize how much they relied on it. How much it defines them.”

Kreia chuckled again, a sound low in her throat. “In many ways, even a fool is more capable than a Jedi. Your skills, your abilities, cannot be stripped from you as easily as hers. It is largely why I continue to tolerate your presence. That, and her inexplicable preference for it.” She ignored Atton’s quick glance in her direction, her blind gaze fixed on Meetra’s sleeping form. “Let us end this - we do her a disservice by speaking of this when she cannot participate in her defense.” With that, Kreia returned to the foot of her bed and resumed the meditative pose.

Atton lay back on the bed, turning to face Meetra. In sleep, her features were truly peaceful; the lines of pain, stress, and grief were swept away, leaving behind a face that Atton knew would follow him into his dreams. He committed it to memory - the curve of her jaw, the line of her nose, the color of her lips - and closed his eyes, willing sleep to take him quickly.


	17. Making Friends

_ Bodies stretched out in front of her in a shin-deep carpet over the jungle floor. In the distance, a man screamed and blaster fire answered. There was no smoke this time; the air was clear and her saber blades burned bright enough to illuminate her immediate surroundings. It was impossible to tell which of the corpses were Mandalorian and which were Republic - the uniforms were scorched and caked with blood. Her robes were singed in places as well and spattered with gore - the hem was soaked through and dripping dark red. She could feel blood on her face, on her hands, in her hair; the lives of friend and foe alike drying on her skin. The faint sounds of battle continued past the trees, but she was alone, the bodies staring sightlessly up at her, judgement written in the permanent lines of pain and horror on their faces. She clutched her lightsaber, hilt slick with blood and sweat in her child’s hands, and stumbled backward. Her boots slipped on the wet grass and the world tilted, revealing a starless void stretching out above her as she fell, mouth opening in a soundless scream -  _

 

Meetra woke with a start, breath catching in her throat. Atton ceased shaking her shoulder and pulled his hand back, looking as startled as she felt. A towel hung around his neck, moisture beading along his forehead, the arch of his cheekbones, and the line of his nose. His hair was damp and slicked back, though a few rebellious strands threatened to fall over his face. The ribbed jacket was gone again, loose off-white shirt hanging slightly open at his throat. He smiled nervously and took a step back with his hands slightly raised. “You alright?”

“Ah, yes - yeah, I’m fine,” Meetra stammered, pushing herself into a sitting position. She took a breath, pulse slowing as her body caught up with her mind, and returned his smile with a small one of her own. “Sorry. Bad dream.”

“You need to talk about it?”

Her smile curved into a smirk. “You offering?”

“Above my paygrade. I was gonna suggest Her Royal Pain-in-the-Ass.” Atton jabbed a thumb toward Kreia, where she still sat cross-legged in meditation. If she heard him, she refused to acknowledge it. Atton rolled his eyes, as if Kreia’s lack of response was itself an insult, and wiped his face with one end of the towel. “Thought you’d want to know you just missed Grenn. Investigation finished this morning.”

“From the lack of panic, I’m guessing the news is good.”

“Well, don’t get too excited. As far as Telos is concerned, we’re in the clear.” His mouth thinned. “That’s the good news.”

Meetra frowned. “And the bad?”

“Republic’s sending a ship to Telos and we’re to remain on-station until it arrives.”

A ball of anxiety settled in her stomach. “Did he say why?”

Atton shrugged. “Ostensibly, the Republic wants to do its own investigation, since the  _ Harbinger  _ was involved.”

“Do you believe that?”

He met her eyes and didn’t look away. “I believe that’s part of it. I also believe we don’t want to be here when they show up.”

Meetra took a deep breath, forcing the rising panic to the back of her mind. “How long do we have?”

“If the ship’s coming from the core planets or inner rim, I’d say a week; mid-rim, we have a few days. Any closer…” He trailed off meaningfully.

She nodded and swung her legs over the side of the bed, carefully testing her knee as she stood. There was an unsteadiness, a lingering weakness in the joint, but it held her weight with little pain. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Atton trying to pretend he wasn’t hovering and she waved him off, gesturing toward the refresher’s open door. “How’s the water pressure?”

“Like there’s a handful of space rock stuffed down the pipes, but at least it’s hot.” He crossed to his bed and flopped onto it, arms folded behind his head, and flashed her a wicked grin. “Let me know if you need help.”

The lascivious remark startled a laugh out of Meetra and Atton’s smirk softened to a genuine smile. Not serious, then. It was still difficult to tell when he was and wasn’t joking, but she was getting better at it. She shook her head, leaving the barb unanswered, and went to the refresher.

With the door closed behind her, there was barely enough room to move. The refresher was hardly more than a box with a high ceiling. A small toilet sat to her left, catty-corner from the shower cubicle and directly across from a shelving unit set into the wall, the top two sections adorned with several white towels. At the very back of the room was a tiny cleanser for garments. Meetra stripped off her tunic and leggings and threw them in, then turned to the shower, adjusting it to an acceptable temperature before stepping inside.

Atton had been right about the pressure - the weak spray barely ruffled her hair, but at least it swept away the thin layer of grime from her skin. She closed her eyes and tipped her face up into the warm water, relishing in the small luxury. She hadn’t had a proper shower since Belsavis - showers on the  _ Harbinger  _ had been an appropriately military affair.

The thought darkened Meetra’s mood, leaching some of her pleasure from the shower. She’d barely spoken to most of the crew aboard the  _ Harbinger,  _ but their deaths still haunted her. If Kreia was right and the Sith Lord on Peragus had been tracking her, the massacre on the warship was partially her fault. The deaths on Peragus, too, though by a different hand. She leaned against the cubicle wall, forehead pressed against the warm tiles, and let out a weary sigh. The feeling - the sense of being responsible for another’s death - was a familiar one, and it never got any easier. In fact, the guilt felt even more fresh this time - she’d grown too used to exile. At least HK-50 and the Sith Lord had gotten what they deserved.

She finished her shower quickly and stepped out, grabbing one of the towels to dry herself. Her shoulder twinged a bit when she brushed the cloth over it, but like her knee, it was leagues better than it had been the day before. As she toweled her hair dry, the cleanser’s cycle finished, and she pulled the clothes out and dressed, a pleasant shiver running down her spine from the lingering warmth. She hung the damp towel on the corner of an empty shelf to air dry, combed her fingers through her hair, and went back out into the apartment.

As soon as the door slid open, Kreia rose from her mediation and crossed the room, stepping around Meetra into the refresher and closing the door without a word. Meetra stared after her for a moment, then shook her head and glanced toward Atton. He had moved from his bed to the desk, jacket tossed haphazardly over the back of the chair and the damp towel in a puddle near his feet. He was engrossed in the terminal, star charts and navigation maps flashing across its screen. Meetra moved to join him, leaning against the edge of the desk next to him in reverse tableau of their first meeting. “Planning a trip?”

“Quickest, and quietest, way to Nar Shaddaa.” He glanced up at her, gaze lingering on the way her damp hair hung around her face. “Like I said before, I think it’s our best option.”

Meetra frowned. She’d never been to Nar Shaddaa, but the city had a certain… reputation, as evidenced by its colloquial nickname: the Smuggler’s Moon. The fact that it was in Hutt space, orbiting Nal Hutta, their “Glorious Jewel,” didn’t do anything to ease her concern.

Her hesitation must have shown on her face because Atton launched into an explanation. “Republic’s not going to risk angering the Hutts, so even if they follow us, once we reach the surface we’re in the wind as far as they’re concerned. The Sith might… well, no, they’ll probably follow us to the surface, but getting lost in the crowd is easy if you know how.”

He paused and Meetra could tell he was considering whether or not to share his next thought. “Granted… the Exchange’s headquarters is on Nar Shaddaa -” Meetra opened her mouth, but he held up a hand to forestall her response “-  _ but _ they won’t be expecting a Jedi to hide right under their noses.”

“So our safest course of action is losing our pursuers in a city where looking over your shoulder is a basic tenet of survival?” Atton shrugged and she sighed, lifting a hand to massage her temple - she felt a tension headache coming on. “I doubt the Hutts will be pleased if they find a Jedi in their territory.”

“Trust me, they’re too busy issuing bounties to notice half of what goes on on Nar Shaddaa,” he said, tone confident. “We lay low on the moon for a few days, maybe a week, and lose both the Republic and the Sith. When the coast is clear, you and the old woman can go where you like without being followed.”

She glanced sideways at him. “You’d stay on Nar Shaddaa?”

Atton gave her an odd look. “Well, yeah.” His tone made it clear he thought it should have been obvious to her. “Look, I appreciate the help on Peragus; we make a good team. But fighting Sith - that’s a Jedi’s job.”

Meetra nodded, a mechanical response more than genuine acceptance. Part of her knew she shouldn’t be surprised - Atton was, by his own admission, a smuggler; not exactly a profession inclined to heroism and sacrifice - but it still stung. She desperately needed allies to take on the Sith, and from what she’d seen, Atton was definitely capable, with a lot of skills she could use… and he was right - they did make a good team.

While she mulled this over, Atton watched her closely, gauging her reaction. He disliked telling her about his departure more than he cared to admit, even to himself, but it was the smart move. His desire to avoid more fighting with the Sith had won out over  _ other  _ desires - if only just barely. She met his eyes again and gave him an understanding smile. “You don’t have to stay on Nar Shaddaa. We could take wherever you wanted to go before…” She trailed off, gaze dropping to the floor again.

“I’ll keep it in mind.” He forced a half-smile as she glanced up at him again. “Thanks, Meetra.” Her smile bloomed at his use of her name and the guilt dug itself deeper in his chest.

The refresher door slid open behind them, putting an end to their conversation. Kreia emerged, and if it not for the steam drifting out behind her, it appeared as if she hadn’t changed or used the shower at all - her hair and clothes were dry and perfectly in place. She scowled across at them. “I take it we have a plan of action if you two are comfortable idling away what time we have left.”

“Maybe,” Meetra said, pushing herself upright from the desk. Atton glanced sharply at her, but she ignored it. “I don’t think any of us wants to be here when the Republic, least of all me. Atton’s made a pretty good case for hiding out on Nar Shaddaa, but I think we should all get a say. What do you think we should do?”

“I do not entirely disagree,” Kreia answered. She pointedly ignored Meetra’s raised eyebrows and Atton’s self-satisfied chuckle. “Republic forces aside, it is unlikely the  _ Harbinger  _ was the only ship the Sith have at their command; they could already be on their way, even now. However… I  _ feel  _ something drew us here, to Telos. Do you not?”

Meetra frowned, brow furrowing in concentration as she reached out through the Force. Kreia was right; there was  _ something  _ \- a minute disturbance, like the flickering of a candle on a darkened night. She struggled to pinpoint the location, but eventually gave up; the disturbance was so minute that her weakened abilities couldn’t track it.

“Great, just what we need: more Jedi,” Atton groaned. He ran a hand through his hair, pulling it back into its usual scruffy style. “The Sith will definitely think twice if there are  _ three  _ of you. Probably send a written apology and everything,”

“I don’t know what it is,” Meetra admitted. The quiet frustration in her voice killed the snark Atton was prepared to unleash. His conversation with Kreia during the night came back to him and he swallowed the retort on his tongue. “I can sense it, but nothing feels -” She broke off, jaw and fists clenching. “Nothing feels the same.”

“Your abilities are not entirely at fault.” Kreia scowled again, but this time it wasn’t intended for her companions. “Its location escapes me as well. But, if it is a Jedi, there is a chance they could help us restore your abilities, or -” She gestured with the empty sleeve of her robe “- sever the connection between us.”

“You think they could be hiding on the station?”

“Hardly. More likely as not, they are on the planet’s surface.”

Atton swiveled the desk chair to face Kreia. “Telos’ surface? The toxic, unliveable surface?”

She smirked. “What better place to hide?”

He stared at her for a long moment, then covered his face with his hands. “So only the crazy Jedi survived the Civil War. Great.”

Kreia turned back to Meetra. “Either way, the choice is yours. Seek out the disturbance on Telos, or flee to your fool’s paradise for thieves and murderers.”

Atton lowered his hands to glare at her. “You missed your calling, Highness. You should write travel brochures.”

“Not everyone can play to their strengths so well as you, fool.”

“Stop,” Meetra said, feeling her headache making a comeback. She let a tinge of the commanding tone her masters had drilled into her as a padawan seep into her voice for good measure. Atton, at least, looked chagrined; Kreia’s only response was a blank stare. “Stay or go, we need the  _ Ebon Hawk _ .”

“Grenn said he was bringing it out of impound, along with the chatty tin can,” Atton said. He stood, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair and pulling on over his shoulders. “Mentioned we could pick up our gear at the TSF station, too.”

“Then that’s a good place to start.”

He gestured toward the apartment door. “All right. I’ll follow your lead.” Meeta nodded and turned to Kreia, but the old woman was already striding out of the apartment. Grumbling under her breath, Meetra hurried to catch up, Atton close behind.

Residential Module 082 reminded Meetra of the high rise apartment buildings on Coruscant, but laid out horizontally rather than vertically. Several corridors led off from the main thoroughfare, ending in small cul de sacs of five separate apartments, and various shopfronts lined the long walkways. Either end of the thoroughfare disappeared into other residential modules. However, Kreia’s pace invited no exploration, and the three quickly made their way to the shuttle.

As the car traversed the station, Telos came into view again. Meetra focused on the planet, concentrating her Force sense. The small flicker was still present, a ripple on an otherwise still pond, but it was impossible to tell where it was located on the surface - if it even actually was. Behind her, Atton frowned, reading the frustration in her shoulders. Part of him wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he held himself back. Getting attached now would only make his leaving more difficult. If Kreia noticed Meetra’s agitation, she ignored it.

The three arrived at Entertainment Module 081 and made their way out of the shuttle station and past the cantina to the security office. A tall gray protocol behind a circular desk glanced up as they entered. “Welcome to Entertainment Module 081’s Telos Security Force office. I am C6-89, TSF administrative assistant. How may I assist you?”

“Our, uh, personal effects were confiscated when we landed yesterday,” Meetra explained haltingly. Her awkwardness stemmed from inexperience - outside of her trial after the Mandalorian Wars, she’d never been on the receiving end of a legal system. “Lieutenant Grenn said we could pick up our belongings and get out ship out of impound.”

“Name?” C6-89’s voice never wavered from its pleasant tenor, but Meetra imagined a sense of annoyance in his tone.

“Meetra Surik.”

“A moment while I call up the appropriate information now.” C6-89 scanned a terminal screen behind the desk while he entered Meetra’s name with robotic precision. “Apologies - I must inform you that your ship, the  _ Ebon Hawk _ , is gone. Your possessions, however, were stored here in the TSF’s armory. If you wish to collect them, I will open the door for you.”

Meetra stared at the protocol droid for a long moment. “What do you mean ‘gone?’”

“The TSF believes it stolen and has opened an investigation.” C6-89’s matter-of-fact tone would have been rage-inducing had he been capable of speaking any other way. “I regret that there is very little information I can give you, as both requester and point of destination are unknown. It is likely the security measures placed on the ship were bypassed, and the  _ Ebon Hawk _ was transferred to the surface of Telos from the impound dock instead of one of the citadel’s hangers. Evidence seems to suggest the TSF’s records were modified to hide the thief’s destination.”

Meetra turned to Atton and saw her deer-in-the-headlights look reflected on his face before anger replaced it. “That karking trash compactor! It’s probably on its way to the inner rim right now, laughing at us…” He lowered his voice, grumbling to himself. “Laughing at me.”

“Incorrect,” C6-89 amended. “While your astromech was on the ship and therefore currently unaccounted for, our satellites show no evidence of the freighter leaving the system. I would conjecture it remains on the planet’s surface.”

“How can you be sure?” Meetra asked. “Your departure records were modified - why not the satellite feeds?”

“It would appear the thief was rushed or is inexperienced. I have investigated the data thoroughly and cannot detect any illegal alterations.”

“Lucky us,” Atton said sarcastically. “Ship’s gotta be in one of the Restoration Zones. Not a lot of places they could have taken her.”

“A reasonable assumption.” C6-89 returned his attention to the terminal for a moment. “Lieutenant Grenn has ordered that your quarters are to remain available to you until this matter is resolved. As previously stated, I will open the armory so you may retrieve your belongings.” A door at the back of the office slid open, revealing several large lockers lining the back wall. “The open locker contains your possessions.”

“Thank you, C6.” Meetra motioned for Atton and Kreia to follow her and entered the armory, testing the lockers until she found the open one. She withdrew their weapons, handing off the blasters and vibrosword to Atton and Kreia, as well as the mining harness and its contents. She buckled the harness on and turned back to her companions. “Well… now what?”

“I would think our course of action obvious,” Kreia said, her tone so deadpan Meetra was unsure if she was being condescending or just blunt. “We require the  _ Ebon Hawk  _ to leave the system. If it is on the planet, then we must retrieve it.”

“You got a shuttle hidden in those robes?” Atton smirked when she turned her blind glare on him. “We need a way off this station and access to the restoration zones. If we don’t have codes to pass through the dome, they’re going to be cleaning us off of it.”

“We might have the second part,” Meetra interjected. “The Ithorian who contacted us last night - didn’t he say he was part of a restoration project? They would need access to the planet and the domes, right?”

Atton frowned. “I doubt they’re going to help us out of the goodness of their hearts.”

“Probably not, but it’ll be worth it to get the  _ Ebon Hawk  _ back.” Meetra left the armory and returned to C6-89’s desk. “C6, can you give me directions to the local Ithorian herd?”

“Certainly, ma’am.” He consulted his terminal briefly. “The Ithorian compound is located in the western section of Residential Module 082. Simply return to the module and exit to the left.”

“Thank you,” Meetra said, and she and her companions returned to the shuttle. As it left the station, she sat with her back to Telos, turing her staff over in her hands. Atton sat next to her and she glanced up at him. “You don’t have to come with us, you know.”

He frowned. “What?”

“To the Ithorians. I don’t want to drag you along, and I’m sure you can find another ship to take you to Nar Shaddaa.”

“Yeah, for a price.” He smirked and leaned back against the tram wall. “I don’t know about you, Jedi, but I’m a little light on credits. I’m willing to put up with a little inconvenience for a free ride.”

She chuckled, the laugh warm and low in her throat. “I’m sure you’re going to regret that, but thank you.”

“Trust me - if I do, it’ll be pretty low on the list.” There was a note of bitterness in his voice that made Meetra glanced sideways at him, but it didn’t show on his face. Her curiosity was piqued, but she refrained from picking at it. Everyone was entitled to their secrets.

After returning to the residential module, the three exited out into the western section, following the signage to the Ithorian compound. Upon entering, an Ithorian rose from behind the welcome desk and rushed (as much any Ithorian could) to meet them. “Master Surik! I’m relieved you have come.”

“It’s just Meetra,” she corrected him, belatedly realizing that he was the same Ithorian she spoken to before. “Moza, right?”

“Yes, Meetra Surik.” He glanced past Meetra to Atton and Kreia, an easy feat due to his wide-set eyes. His otherwise featureless face was impossible to read, but his voice carried an air of hesitation. “You’ve… all… come to speak to Chodo Habat?”

“We have,” she confirmed. “Is he in?”

“Of course; please, follow me.” Moza shuffled further into the compound, threading his way through several cubicles modified for Ithorian use. Several other Ithorians milling around the area paused to watch Meetra and her companions pass, rumbling softly among themselves. Moza led the three through a side door, where they found another Ithorian bent over a desk. He glanced up as Moza approached. “Chodo? Meetra Surik has come to speak with you.”

“Master Surik!” Chodo moved to stand before her, delight suffusing his guttural voice. Now that he was standing fully, she could see that he was a bit taller than the other members of his herd, his face more lined with a slight cloudy tinge to his large brown eyes. “Your presence gladdens me. I am Chodo Habat, this herd’s leader.”

“Please, just Meetra. I no longer use a Jedi’s title.” Despite the claim, she heard herself slipping into the diplomatic tone she’d been trained to use when speaking with leaders and people in authority. “You requested our help?”

“Indeed; my apologies for the imposition, but before I sensed your arrival, I feared there was nowhere to turn.”

“You are Force-sensitive.” Meetra glanced back at Kreia, but the old woman’s eyes were fixed on the Chodo.

He eyed Kreia warily, but nodded. “As a priest of my people, I have some connection to the Force.” His gaze shifted back to Meetra. “Your people would call me an “adept. I have encountered few other Jedi, so when I detected your arrival, I was unsure; however, now that you stand before me, I am thankful I sent Moza to speak with you.”

Meetra frowned. “What do you mean you were ‘unsure?’”

Chodo hesitated. “There was… forgive me, I have trouble describing it.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “It is like… an ‘echo,’ a fracture or weakness in the Force. It is subtle; impossible to notice, unless one is actively listening. It was unnatural, born of great suffering - not of the body, but of the spirit.” He glanced at her face and the lines around his eyes deepened. “Forgive me, Meetra Surik. It was not my intention to cause you pain.”

“No, Chodo, it’s - it wasn’t your words.” Meetra’s heart hammered in her chest and her throat threatened to close on a sob, but she pushed the grief, freshly awakened by Chodo’s pity away, compartmentalizing as she’d been taught. Behind her, safely out of sight, Atton clenched a fist, frustrated at his inability and partial unwillingness to comfort her. “I was separated from the Force for some time… but it’s slowly returning.”

“Actually, this… echo was part of the reason I had Moza approach you,” Chodo admitted. “I have some skill with healing. In return for your assistance, and with your permission, I would like to attempt to expedite your recovery.”

Meetra went still, eyes wide. “You can do that?”

“I do not have the skill of a Jedi, Meetra Surik, but I may be able to help.”

“‘May be.’ ‘Attempt.’” Kreia’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “You are bold to offer half-promises of healing, Chodo Habat. The planet you have already committed to restoring still burns beneath this station, and you expect our faith in regards to an injury you have never before encountered?”

“Kreia.” Even though it wasn’t directed at him, Atton flinched at the sharpness of Meetra’s rebuke. Kreia barely glanced at her, clearly not intimidated. “Thank you for the offer, Chodo;  _ any  _ help is appreciated. What do you need from us?”

Chodo eyed Kreia for a long moment before answering. “What do you know of the problems facing our restoration efforts on Telos?”

She paused, recalling the second contact she’d received last night. “I’m guessing the Czerka Corporation is throwing up a few roadblocks.”

His eyes widened. “Indeed, Meetra Surik. Czerka seeks to stymie our efforts to restore Telos, though I have not yet ascertained their motives. Perhaps they seek something on the planet - regardless, they have used their influence in both the Telosian government and the Senate to hinder our progress.”

“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re not exactly the lobbyist type,” Atton said, the sarcasm slipping out before he could stop himself. He was relieved when Meetra inclined her head toward him in agreement.

“I was hoping to pursue more…  _ practical _ routes of persuasion,” Chodo admitted. “Czerka has quite the military force at its command, and we have little ability to defend ourselves.”

Atton crossed his arms, mouth curving up in a humorless half-smile. “You need muscle.”

Chodo’s eyes narrowed. “... In part. Czerka has a history of interfering with our deliveries, though it is difficult to tie the incidents back to them.” He glanced at Meetra. “But with your skills, Meetra Surik, I think it will be more difficult for them to inconvenience us.”

Meetra gripped her staff tighter and nodded. If a little intimidation was all the Ithorians needed, it was worth the effort to gain access to Telos’ surface… and possibly restore more of her connection to the Force. “You have a deal, Chodo. Where do we start?"


	18. The Wrong Crowd

Atton slumped onto the bench, head tilted over the back. “I had no idea a bunch of pacifists could be so ‘mercenary.’ They’re in the wrong business.”

Meetra smiled at him over her shoulder, then returned to her inspection of the vivarium’s pastel-bloomed bachani plant. Atton was exaggerating, but not by much. Chodo’s “errands” had sent the three of them from one end of Citadel Station to the other: first to the docks to ensure the delivery of a new protocol droid, where a Czerka mercenary ambush had answered Meetra’s questions about the fate of the droid’s predecessor, and then back to the Residential Modules to “convince” a Duros engineer to hand over his technician credentials in order to reprogram the local Czerka office’s reception droid. Not that it had been much of a shakedown - when the Duros revealed the debt preventing him from risking his job, Chodo had provided the funds without a second thought.

Now, it was just a matter of waiting until B-4D4, the droid saboteur, returned with the information he’d been sent to collect. Meetra had spent the time exploring the compound, Atton trailing at her heels. She wasn’t sure where Kreia had disappeared to - likely she had found a hiding place as far from the Ithorians as possible. The old woman’s distaste was almost palpable, and it wasn’t limited to just Chodo - the Ithorians seemed to draw her ire just by existing. Meetra wasn’t sure why; true, the aliens could be overly polite, and their idea of personal space was closer than she was entirely comfortable with, but they were otherwise pleasant.

“You are familiar with the properties of bachani?” Meetra started a bit at the vivarium keeper’s rumble near her shoulder. Despite their size, the Ithorians were surprisingly light on their feet. He raised his hands and took a half step back, concern in his wide set eyes. “Forgive me, Meetra Surik. I did not intend to alarm you.”

“It’s fine; I was just a little lost in thought.” She smiled reassuringly at him. “To answer your question, I know a little. An old friend had a bit of talent for botany.” She omitted Alek’s name, more for Atton’s benefit than the Ithorian’s. Though the guilt ate at her, she still couldn’t bring herself to tell him how deep her connection to Revan and Malak went. Irrational as it seemed, part of her balked at the idea of him thinking less of her for it. “It has medicinal properties, right? From the blossoms?”

He nodded. “Its most basic use, yes. We’re hoping to implement this in a slightly different fashion. You’ll notice the specimens we have here are taller than average.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

The keeper chuckled. “Our hope is that by engineering their height, they will spread further - perhaps even outside the restoration zones. It is a hardy plant; it may be able to restore both the earth and the air, given enough time.”

Meetra looked back at the plant. Its purple petals and thin frame didn’t look like they would survive a stiff breeze, much less the ruined surface of Telos. In a way, it reminded her of Revan, before she’d been Revan - delicate beauty that hid a fearsome strength - and look at everything she’d accomplished, both wonderful and terrible. The bachani was in powerful company if the keeper was right.

Behind her, Atton lifted his head, watching her carefully. The moments when Meetra retreated into herself, when she was physically present but light years away in her head, were her most honest. He could only see one side of her face, but even that showed a longing so powerful it almost took his breath away. Sadness mingled with regret and reverie strong enough to make him want a drink, and the emotions weren’t even his own. Part of him wanted to know her secrets, if only to properly console her - he’d never liked seeing a woman in pain - but a voice in the back of his mind kept him seated, the same thought on an endless loop: _Funny, you’ve caused more than one woman enough pain._

“Meetra Surik!” Atton straightened as Meetra turned at Moza’s approach, pretending to examine his fingernails. Chodo’s assistant was visibly excited, as much as any Ithorian could be. “My apologies for the interruption, but the droid B-4D4 has returned. Chodo requests your presence when it presents its information.”

“Thank you, Moza.” Meetra turned back to the vivarium keeper and gave him a small smile. “I wish you luck with the bachani.” He inclined his head, wide eyes crinkling at the corners. Meetra retrieved her staff from near the door and moved to follow Moza out of the room, motioning for Atton to come along. He rolled his eyes in mock annoyance but stood and followed them back to Chodo’s office. The Ithorian priest was there with B-4D4, as was Kreia, though Meetra was unsure who had informed her of the protocol droid’s arrival. She met the old woman’s blind gaze briefly, but Kreia just nodded toward Chodo.

“Ah, welcome back, Meetra Surik,” Chodo rumbled in greeting, then waved a hand at the protocol droid. “Please, B-4D4. What were you able to retrieve from the Czerka mainframe?”

“A record of the Czerka Corporation's actions against your restoration project, Master Habat.” B-4D4 handed over a datapad. “Additionally, I took the liberty of including any bribes or black market transactions made in regard to your restoration efforts.”

“Excellent.” Chodo scrolled through the datapad’s contents before passing it off to Moza. “With this evidence, Czerka will no longer be able to hide behind the Telosian government’s ignorance - or its assistance. Have it sent to our contact in the Republic immediately.” Moza inclined his head and shuffled out, datapad in hand, and Chodo turned back to the protocol droid. “Thank you for your assistance, B-4D4. You’re free to return to your post.”

“You’re just going to let it go?” Atton tipped his head to the side, brow furrowed, as he glanced from Chodo to B-4D4 and back again. “You think that’s wise? All it would take is one manual review of its memory core and Czerka will be at your doorstep.”

“I doubt it would take even that much effort to bring Czerka to our door.” Chodo’s deadpan delivery was somewhat ruined by his natural Ithorian monotone. “However, I did have our technician implement some safeguards. B-4D4?”

The protocol droid shuffled to face Atton. “I assure you I will cause no trouble for Master Habat. There is a protocol in place that will activate as soon as I cross the compound threshold. The record of my time here will be stored in a compartment inaccessible to anyone but Master Habat or his secretary, including myself.”

Atton shook his head. “Your funeral.”

B-4D4 tottered back toward Chodo. “Will there be anything else, Master Habat?”

“No, you’ve done more than enough, B-4D4.” Chodo gestured toward the door to his office. “Please, speak to Moza on your way out. He will help ensure safe passage back to Czerka.” He waited until the protocol droid left the room before turning to Meetra. “I should be saying the same to you, Meetra Surik. Without your assistance, I fear our efforts to restore Telos would have been for naught. Now, we have a fighting chance.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” Atton said, and the wry amusement in his voice didn’t reach his eyes.

Chodo paused, eyes narrowing, and Meetra got the sense that if he’d had a visible mouth, the expression would have been very similar to the one Atton often elicited from Kreia. “Losing their hold in the Telosian government will inconvenience Czerka, but pocketed officials and the black market are not their only forms of support. If you will allow my selfishness for a while longer, I would ask one more favor of you.”

“There’s always a third,” Atton muttered under his breath. Meetra glanced sharply at him over her shoulder and he rolled his eyes, moving to sit down in the nearest chair - at least, to the best of his abilities. Built with Ithorian proportions in mind, the seat was too wide and the back absent armrests, so the lazy affected slouch ended up as more of an awkward slump.

Still, Atton had a point, and Meetra kept her tone reserved when she spoke to Chodo. “What do you need from us?”

He hesitated, the thick digits on his hands interlacing and releasing rapidly - the first sign of nervousness he’d displayed in front of her. “Czerka has long held an… ‘investment’ agreement with Lopak Slusk, the, ah, head of the Citadel Station’s Exchange branch.” Atton barked a laugh, a noise somewhere between amusement and disbelief, and this time Meetra didn’t rebuke him. Chodo refused to meet her eyes, his gaze trained on the floor. “I know what it means to ask this of you, Meetra Surik, but if Czerka continues to receive support from Slusk, our work will remain in danger, and Telos will suffer for it.”

“Slusk is only the leader of _this_ branch, correct?” Chodo nodded, confusion in the tightened wrinkles around his eyes. “What about the head of the Exchange? I doubt he’d want his organization tied to Czerka’s public fall out.”

“You’ll have to forgive her; she’s not really up to date on current events.” Atton smirked, not entirely unkindly, when Meetra glared at him. “Goto’s not really a corporate complaint kind of guy. You don’t find him unless he wants to be found, and as long as they keep the money flowing his way, he doesn’t particularly care who his goons associate with.”

“Your companion is right, Meetra Surik,” Chodo rumbled. “When I first learned of the Exchange’s association with Czerka, I attempted to contact their leader, but outside of his name, I could discover nothing about him. It seems few in the Exchange know more than even that.” He started to fidget again, big hands twining around each other. “I would like to stress that I prefer Lopak Slusk severe his connection with Czerka of his own accord.”

Atton chuckled. “He means try not to beat the guy to a pulp.”

“I know what he means.” Meetra frowned, bit the inside of her cheek. After a moment, she sighed and nodded. “I’ll speak to him. But I can’t promise he’ll agree. If he doesn’t…” She trailed off, the implication hanging between them.

Chodo nodded, brow furrowing. “Agreed. Thank you again, Meetra Surik. I know we ask too much.”

“What you’ve offered in return is worth the risk, Chodo.” Meetra smiled, small and sad. “Besides, I’m used to it. We’ll be back when it’s done.” She turned and left the room without a word or a backward glance, Atton scrambling to his feet to follow her. Kreia leveled a blind stare at Chodo for a long moment before she left as well. The priest stood, wide eyes fixed on the doorway for a few beats, then he turned and crossed to his desk, sinking down into the chair with a heavy sigh.

 

Once outside the compound, Atton caught Meetra’s arm, pulling his hand back quickly when she spun to face him. For a moment, there was something dark behind her expression, but it was quickly replaced with open curiosity. Whether this was a mask, or she was simply unaware of her initial emotion, he wasn’t sure. “Can we pause for a minute and talk this through?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

He stared at her flatly. “‘A Jedi walks into the local Exchange office’ doesn’t have a very good punchline these days. _If_ you can even get in. I doubt Slusk is in the habit of giving tours to strangers off the street.”

Meetra tightened her grip on her staff. “There’s _always_ a way in.”

“I thought Jedi were supposed to be diplomatic.”

“Good thing I’m not a Jedi.”

Atton pressed a hand to his temple. “You’re putting on a great act then. Jedi never did have a problem involving other people in their schemes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You _can_ leave. I’m sure Chodo is willing to pay your fare.”

“Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind.” He turned to Kreia. “Care to step in here? You speak crazy Jedi; maybe you can convince her not to get us all killed.” Atton stalked away a short distance, pretending to examine the nearest transport terminal. Meetra glared after him, anger rising hot in her chest before Kreia stilled it with a chuckle.

“While it amuses me to watch you turn your frustration on the fool, it is misplaced.” Meetra transferred her glower to Kreia, but its edge was blunted on the old woman’s blank stare. “Truthfully, I share your annoyance with Habat and his Ithorians; though not, I think, for the same reasons.” Her mouth tightened into a thin line. “His audacity vexes me more than his requests. You realize he intends you to be a pawn; a means to his own ends.”

“That’s rhetorical, right.” Meetra deadpanned, the response more statement than question. “If you see any other choices, please, enlighten me.”

“I am simply trying to understand your motivations.” If Kreia found Meetra’s flippancy irritating, it didn’t show. “If it is only to retrieve the _Ebon Hawk_ , or even if you believe Habat’s claims that he can restore you, I can understand. If not…”

Meetra scowled, but she couldn’t make herself meet Kreia’s eyes. “Why does it matter?”

“Because you are far too important to become entangled in these little lives.” There was an edge to Kreia’s voice now. “You are all that stands between the Sith and domination, and they are keenly aware of it. If you allow yourself to be distracted by the inconsequential struggles of this planet, you are not only dooming yourself, but the rest of the galaxy as well. How many of them will thank you then?”

Meetra was silent for a moment, eyes downcast. When she lifted her gaze to meet Kreia’s once more, there was a flicker of defiance in it. “And if I ignore them now, how many will still be alive to thank me if I defeat the Sith? If I can help, I can’t just step over them; it’s not right. I already tried that, and it didn’t end well.”

Kreia shook her head, but she wasn’t angry. “‘A Jedi’s life is sacrifice,’” she echoed, one corner of her mouth curving up in condescension at Meetra’s scowl. “The past cannot be changed; what point is there in atoning for it? Tell me, would you act differently? Would you side with the Council, hiding behind bureaucracy and policies?”

“That’s not the poi - “

“If your answer isn’t no, then you do yourself a disservice.” All humor was gone from Kreia’s voice. “You discredit every decision that made you who you are now. Clinging to an infantile sense of right and wrong did not stop the Mandalorians. It will not stop the Sith.” She paused, allowing the gravity of her words to sink in. “Now, we have wasted enough time. Regardless of your motives, we must retrieve the _Ebon Hawk_.” She glanced past Meetra to Atton. “Which means we require your fool in a more cooperative mood.”

Meetra scrunched her nose at the continued insult, but Kreia waved her off and made her way toward the shuttle dock. With another sigh, Meetra joined Atton at the terminal. He didn’t turn toward her, but she saw him shoot a quick glance sideways at her. “So, still planning on rushing the front door?”

“If necessary.” Now he did turn to face her, disbelief and anger mingling there before he realized she was mostly joking. “I’d… What do you suggest?”

Atton hesitated, scanning her face closely. There was still a measure of guarded vulnerability behind her eyes, but the rest of her expression was open, inviting even. He sighed and looked away. “Nobody gets that much power in the Exchange without making a few enemies. More than a few of his own would probably jump at the chance to set him up. You just have to know where to look.”

Meetra tipped her head to the side, an eyebrow and one side of her mouth lifting in tandem. “And you know?”

Even under the corridor’s harsh lighting, her blue eyes sparkled when she smiled, and Atton had no defense against it. “Where you find every self-respecting criminal at this time of day.”

 

Citadel Station’s cantina was a dim, noisy, crowded nightmare. Meetra stuck close to Atton, wincing against the assault on her senses. A duo of Bith musicians played a raucous set on a stage at the far end of the cantina, flanked on either side by a pair of Twi’lek dancers. Patrons mingled across the room, some forming an impromptu dance floor in front of the stage and others crowding seats at the bar and tables. Perhaps Kreia had the right idea when she’d decided to wait outside. Atton glanced back and, noting her distress, offered an arm and a smirk. Meetra made a face and punched his shoulder lightly, her sour look slipping into a grin when he laughed.

A scuffle broke out ahead of them and Atton stopped dead, Meetra colliding with him. He caught her arm, steadying her even as he gently pushed her back. A circle formed around two men, each being held back by another. One wore the familiar orange and yellow uniform of the Republic army, while the other was dressed in tan with a wide white scarf around his shoulders. Their speech was so slurred it took Meetra a few seconds to make out what they were shouting.

“Onderon has done nothing but benefit from joining us!” The Republic soldier tried to lunge at the other man, but his fellow held him too securely. “Security, peace, prosperity; what more do you Onderonians want?!”

“Talia sold us out to the Republic!” The Onderonian was further gone, nearly falling even as his friend tried to hold him up. “What prosperity? Iziz has been stripped of its wealth, its beauty, to furnish the inner planets! We have nothing to show for relinquishing our independence to the Republic!”

“We didn’t turn your planet into a penal colony! If we hadn’t stepped in, you’d be speaking Mando’a!”

“You didn’t even conquer us!” Pain and rage flooded the Onderonian soldier’s voice, causing it to break, and he clutched his friend’s shoulder for support. “We were betrayed from within! Our own queen handed her people over without a second thought!”

A large Gamorrean pushed his way through the crowd, barkeep following in his wake, and stood between the two men, physically separating them while the protocol droid attempted to calm them down. With the prospect of a fight neutralized, the onlookers began to disperse and Meetra felt a gentle tug on her arm. She turned to find a tall, curvaceous Zeltron standing at the bar behind her, flanked by another Gamorrean. “Sorry about the show.” She smiled, the white of her teeth stark against her shell-pink skin. “Don’t think I’ve seen you around before. I’d remember a face like yours.”

Meetra sensed more than saw Atton move closer to her, catching a glimpse of his hand hovering above a holstered blaster, and she took her cue from his caution, keeping her face carefully blank while tensing for a fight. “Just passing through.”

The Zeltron grinned over her drink, her eyes, a shade darker than her skin, half-lidded and smoldering. “Just long enough to help the Ithorians?” Her gaze shifted over Meetra’s shoulder, and Meetra risked a glance back. Atton’s hand rested lightly on the grip of one of his blasters, the other, the one closest to her, held loosely at his side. “Relax. I’m not looking for trouble.” She held a hand out to Meetra, who shook it robotically. “I’m Luxa. Join me for a drink?” She glanced at Atton again, the sultry look returning. “Your friend can come with. Two’s company, but three’s a party.”

Luxa turned to the Gamorrean at her side and leaned up to whisper in his ear. She pointed at an occupied table and he lumbered off, Luxa signalling to the bartender as she followed in his wake. Meetra hesitated, half turning to Atton. “What do you think?”

He shrugged. “Disgustingly attractive woman offering free drinks? Who says no to that?”

Her face scrunched. “Are you serio - “

“ _And_ the Exchange is the largest employer of Gamorreans in the Outer Rim.”

Meetra’s annoyance died in her throat. “She works for the Exchange?”

“Let’s find out.” Atton gave her a gentle push in the direction of the table, following close behind. The previous occupants, having a sudden urge to dance that had nothing to do with the Bith musicians and everything to do with Luxa’s Gamorrean guard, had vacated, leaving a pair of open seats across from the Zeltron. The bartender reached the table just as they did, placing three identical glasses filled with acid-green liquid in front of them. Atton snatched one and downed half of it before the droid left the table, but Meetra left the glass meant for her where it was.

“So, beautiful.” Luxa leaned forward, showing off the ample cleavage afforded by her bodysuit cut-outs, and took the third drink. “I didn’t catch your name?”

 “Meetra.” She was grateful when no flash of recognition crossed Luxa’s face.

The Zeltron smiled, white on pink. “Cute. Just like you.”

Atton tossed back the remainder of his drink and leaned across the table to take Meetra’s. “I’m Atton, by the way. In case you were making a list of names reflecting their owners’ attractiveness.”

Luxa shifted her gaze to him, a sardonic edge curving her smile. “No offense, pretty boy, but I invited you mostly for window dressing.”

He shrugged and grinned into his glass. “I can work with that.”

Meetra tapped the table to bring Luxa’s attention back to her. “Not that we don’t appreciate the hospitality, but what is it you want?”

“Business before pleasure, then?” Luxa rested her chin in her hand but remained leant over the table. “I’d heard Jedi could be stiff, but I was hoping for a _different_ sort.” Meetra went still, fist clenched on the table, and wished she hadn’t left her staff with Kreia. Next to her, Atton retained his aloof leisurely posture, but the hand not holding his glass disappeared beneath the table. Luxa glanced between them and rolled her eyes. “If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t have got past the door. All I want is a bit of company and conversation. After that…” She lifted a hand to signal the bartender for another round of drinks. “We’ll see where it goes.”

“Bold of you to assume,” Atton murmured into his drink. His free hand returned to the tabletop and Meetra released a breath she didn’t realized she’d held.

Luxa tilted her head, smolder and smirk in place. “In my line of work, you get good at reading the room. If you want to stay in business, anyway.” She paused while the droid dropped off three more glasses, this time full of a deep orange. “There’ve been… rumors that a Jedi is helping dig the Ithorians’ thorn deeper into Czerka’s side. I know Chodo Habat wants you to convince Slusk to break ties with Czerka.”

“You’re well-informed,” Meetra said, tone carefully neutral.

“You know I’m Exchange.” Luxa brushed the bluff away with a wave and pulled another drink to her. “And if you don’t, _he_ does.” She tipped the glass toward Atton, whose only response was to toss back one of the new drinks. “I’m one of Slusk’s lieutenants. I handle vice, mostly. Drugs, escorts, gambling; life’s little pleasures.”

“But it’s not enough.”

“Oh, I like you. You get me.” She traced the lip of her glass with a finger. “That ambush you handled down at the docks? Those men were on loan from Slusk. It doesn’t take much to put the pieces together, and unfortunately, Slusk is clever enough to do so.” Luxa sobered, eyes narrowing. “Slusk isn’t going to listen to you. Czerka, the Ithorians; neither of them matters more to him than Goto’s bounty.”

Meetra shook her head. “I’m not a Jedi.”

Luxa laughed, low and throaty. “Beautiful, I’ve seen Jedi. They may have been out of the world for a while, but I have a good memory. From crown to heel, everything you do screams ‘Jedi.’ Slusk isn’t stupid enough to miss that.”

Atton set his empty glass down and reached for Meetra’s, still untouched. “Not exactly telling us anything we don’t know.”

She smiled at him, sharp like glass. “You’re awful chatty for curtains.”

“He has a point.” Meetra settled back in her chair, allowing herself to relax a little. She was familiar with Luxa’s kind. A lust for power but stuck in middle management. “I think we’re past the company and conversation.”

“Fair enough.” Luxa straightened, flirtatious pretense abandoned. “Help me help you. Take Slusk out and I’ll fill the void. Goto doesn’t care what we do or who’s in charge, as long as the numbers stay consistent. If I run this branch of the Exchange, the Ithorians will never hear from Czerka again, and Goto will never know you were here.”

Meetra stared at her for a long moment, then pushed her chair back from the table and stood. Startled, Atton drained the rest of his drink and followed suit. Luxa remained seated, watching Meetra’s face closely. “I’m not killing your boss for you.”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything about killing.” Luxa leaned back in her chair, tipping it onto its rear legs with one boot on the edge of the table for balance. “I can get you into the Exchange suites without Slusk knowing you’re coming. After that, scare him off the station, convince him to see the error of his ways; it doesn’t matter to me. Once he’s out of the picture, I can take over. Czerka won’t see another red cent from the Exchange, and you’ll go your own way, completely under Goto’s radar.” She swallowed the last of her drink and set the glass down. “So, do we have a deal, beautiful?”

Meetra exchanged a look with Atton before answering. “Deal.”

“Wonderful.” Luxa tapped the hulking Gamorrean behind her with the back of her hand, and he produced a datapad and handed it to her. “The Exchange suites are in the Residential Modules, east of the Ithorians’ compound. You know the way?”

“We’ll find it.”

The Zeltron’s predatory grin sharpened. “I’m sure. The guard at the door is one of mine. Tell him I sent you and he’ll get you in. After that, you’re on your own, but you seem a capable sort.” She waved at the bartender again. “Now, if you don’t have any questions…”

Meetra nodded and strode away, glad to be out of Luxa’s presence. She still felt the Zeltron’s eyes on her, an itch between her shoulder blades. Atton caught up with her at the cantina’s entrance. “You know this is probably a trap, right?”

“I’m open to any suggestions.” With the noise of the cantina suppressed behind its heavy door, Meetra found she could think more clearly. In hindsight, of course Luxa’s offer was a trap as much for her as Slusk, but it was marginally less suicidal than kicking down the front door. She glanced up at Atton. Despite taking both his drinks and hers, he seemed no less lucid than when they’d entered the cantina, regarding her searching look with a guarded one of his own. “You don’t have to do this with me, Atton. Chodo really would help you off the Citadel, even if just as a favor to me. I know what it’s like to be dragged unwilling into someone else’s plan, a bad plan at that, and I don’t want to do that to you.”

He was silent for a moment and she started to grow uncomfortable under his gaze. It was almost as if he could see past her lies of omission to the truth she concealed, the things she was most ashamed of. Then he grinned and shook his head, releasing her from his appraisal. “And be indebted to you and the Ithorians? No thanks, beautiful.”

“Stop it.”

“Oh, I can’t say it, but the Exchange thug guaranteed to betray us can?” Atton rolled his eyes, but the lingering smile was genuine. Only teasing. “Look, for once, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I’d rather earn my way. You’re a bad influence, Jedi.” The grin turned mischievous. “Besides, I’m not missing Kreia’s reaction when you tell her how we’re getting into the Exchange.” Meetra’s trepidation must have been evident on her face because he laughed as he turned away, heading to the pre-arranged rendezvous where Kreia would be waiting. Meetra sighed and hurried after him, steeling herself for Kreia’s displeasure. There was a good chance Atton wouldn’t be the only one with the fool moniker for much longer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to serve as a combination apology/explanation/update sort of note. The reason for this chapter being a little late is that I am moving and changing jobs in a few weeks, so there's been a lot of packing and cleaning. Hopefully this won't affect the next update too much as I will have a little downtime between moving and starting the new job, but if that happens, just know that it's only IRL stuff getting in the way and the fic hasn't been abandoned. I would also like to thank those of you sticking with me despite these setbacks. You all are the best and it means the world to me that you love this thing enough to stay with it even when the updates are a tad late.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! Comments/critiques/kudos/questions are appreciated and welcomed.


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